AND SPAIN WAS THEIR LAST HOPE
Apuntes de una Odisea
Karin Helml, Hermann Peseckas
Austria 2006. DVCam, 83 min.
SINOPSIS |ARTISTIC DATA |TECHNICAL DATA | DIRECTOR'S STAMENTS | BIO/FILMOGRAPHY
SINOPSIS
Six protagonists discuss their experiences in the Spanish Civil War through personal commentaries and mostly private photographs, and describe their odyssey through Europe which came as a consequence of the war.
Each of the 6 fought on the side of the Spanish Republic. They voluntarily enlisted their services from 1936- 39 in the hopes of defending Spain against fascism. Four of the ‘Spain-fighters' portrayed here are Austrian. With their roots in the Social Democratic Party of Austria, all 4 experienced the negative effects of an Austrofascist dictatorship that came to power in 1934. Each of them left Austria illegally to join International Brigades in Spain with the intention of defeating the fascism that had already spread across half of Europe. The two Spanish protagonists in the film experienced the military's uprising in Spain under General Franco in 1936 first hand. They hoped to defend their own country by joining the Spanish Republican Militia.
The paths of the protagonists seem to parallel each other, with each of them experiencing similar twists of fate after the war was lost in 1939. All fled to France after the war. All ended up in internment camps in southern France, kept behind barbed wire fences along with 100,000 other Spanish men, women, children, and defeated soldiers who had defended the Republic.
There began their long odyssey through French detention camps, various labour units, and finally their extradition to Nazi German y…
ARTISTIC DATA:
Protagonists: Ferdinand Hackl, Gert Hoffmann, Ernst Kuntschik, Hans Landauer, Mathias Arranz Aparicio, Manuel García Barredo.
TECHNICAL DATA:
Story / Directing: Karin Helml, Hermann Peseckas
Photography / Editing: Hermann Peseckas
Sound: Helml, Peseckas
Producer: Karin Helml
Image Correction: Andreas Baumgartner
Titel: Patrick Rieder
Production: Helml / Peseckas
Contact/World Sales: Studio West. Franz-Josef-Strasse 20/1, A - 5020 Salzburg.
Documentary, Digital Video, 83 min, 16:9, Color Pal, Stereo, A 2006, German /Spanish with subtitles.
Shootings in Austria, Spain, France and Germany
Supported by public funds: The Austrian Government – Chancellory for the Arts, the cultural departments of the County and the City of Salzbug , Vienna and Lower Austria .
DIRECTOR'S STATMENTS
Although this odyssey was over for the Austrian survivors after 1945, those Spaniards who had to flee their country by the hundred thousands after their defeat in the war and who escaped being murdered in German concentration camps, had to remain in ‘exile' for an additional 30 long years until Franco's death. They are still waiting for “reconciliation”.
Until now, Spain has been proceeding very timidly with regards to its more recent history. For decades, a public discourse about this dark chapter in Spain's recent history, the devastation caused by Franco's fascism, was averted for fear that the old scars that divided families and parties would be torn open again.
It is also a relatively little known fact in Spain, German y, and Austria that there was a congenial partnership between Franco and Hitler as regarded extraditing republican refugees to German y to be put to work and murdered there.
Up until this point, the republican survivors of the german concentration camps have hardly ever had the chance to speak out in the Spanish public. In our documentary, they are given a loud voice.
BIO/FILMOGRAPHY
Karin Helml
Director and Producer
Born 1961 in Linz , Austria. English and Spanish Language Studies at the University of Salzburg . Graduation 1986. Studies of Cultural Management at the ICCM (Institute for Contemporary Cultural Management). Graduation 1991.Studies of Photography 1993-94.Organisation of documentary film festivals, e.g . First International Documentary Film Festival in Vienna 1990.Managing director of " Projects on Visual Anthropology " in Vienna 1991-92. Since 1996 working at Studio West Salzburg, a non-profit organisation of freelance film-and videomakers. Since 2000 managing director.
Film/Video :
Videoclip " Flying Cow Enterprises ". Festival of the Regions, Upper Austria 1998.
" just dripping away ". First Film. Documentary 2002. Director, photography and producer. (Co-author: Sina Moser).
„Ja SacrAustria“ Shortfilm, part of „Splitter“: Series of video statements on Salzburg and the rest of the world. (Co-author: Gunther M. Stark) 2003.
Awards:
Special Mention at the DIAGONALE 2002, Austrian Film Festival, Category: Short & Documentary Film.
25 th Cinéma du Reél 2003 , France . International Competition.
Hermann Peseckas
Director, Photography & Editing
Born 1950 in Western German y Studies in Cultural Anthropology and Communication. Freelance photographer and journalist
Since 1983 filmmaker
Film / Video (Selection):
“Time does not heal”. (75 min. 1984) Documentary on the lives of Sinti and Roma in Austria . 2 parts.
“Beans on Toast”. An unofficial Story of Liverpool. (50 min. 1985 /86).
“The Mozart Experts” (60 min. 1990, co-production with WDR and ORF)
“Bassin Moskva” . Utopian Site (60 min. 1997, shown on WDR, RAI)
“This is the Blues ”. Blues in Austria . (45 min. 1998)
“ Where does the sound come from?” (45 min, 1988, co-production with 3sat)
“City after the War. Sarajevo ”. (Co-authors: Mar io Jandrokovic, Tommy Schneider, 50 min. 1999, shown on 3sat )
“Pushkinskaya 10. The art of survival” (93 min. 2001, co-production with 3sat,
shown on Phoenix ). Documentary cuts on the present situation of artists in Russia .
“somewhere in between ”. (Co-authors: Mar io Jandrokovic, Ulrike Ramsauer, 50 min. 2003). Documentary on the situation of writers from former Yugoslavia in exile.
“ The principles of the lagoon” (Co-authors: Heinrich Breidenbach, Claudio Ruggieri, 60 min. 2005, co-production with 3sat). Documentary on the way of living in the Venice lagoon.
Awards:
“Goldene Taube” at the TV- and Documentary Filmfestival Leipzig ,
Award for the Best Editing in Montecartini / Therme ( Italy ).
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