Daphne Bunskoek introduceert documentaireklassieker Bread day

Holland Doc vertoont op vrijdag 30 november 2012 de documentaireklassieker Bread day (1999). Een groep gepensioneerden leven in afzondering buiten St. Petersburg. Hun wekelijkse ritueel is het halen van brood bij een spoorweg op twee uur lopen en het uitdelen van dit brood in het dorp.

Holland Doc 24

Presents

Documentary classics

Imagine, it's winter, you're old, you live in a for the greater part abandoned Russian village

and for bread you're completely dependent on a freight train which brings once a week

a carriage with food.

And that carriage, which is unhooked at two and a half hours walking distance from the village

has to be pushed to the village by yourself

This bleak world, far from here and with a reality far away from ours

is depicted by director Sergei Dvortsevoy in the documentary Bread Day

Bread day, made in 1998, is a slow and still film, which immerses the viewer into the freezing cold

and severe conditions of the frozen village.

At the same time, it's a rather absurd film

with cursing and mostly drunk elderly and their hard struggle for their daily bread.

Among themselves, but also with the railway carriage which can hardly be pushed any further

and with the shop assistant in the baker's shop who determines who will get bread and how much.

[Man: Tomorrow I want a whole rucksack full.]

[Woman: Why do you have to give me so much pain!]

If there were a hell on earth, you'd instantly believe it would look like this.

It's a village where time stands still and where only survival matters.

We see the daily routine, the bleakness and the scarcity.

Get to know a place where people only long for the next delivery of bread.

Nominated in 1998 for the prestigious Joris Ivens Award.

This is Bread Day...