Acclaimed filmmaker Vadim Jendreyko is doing us the honour to come to ECA and present his latest documentary ‘The Woman with the 5 Elephants’, unreleased in the UK.
The screening will be followed by a masterclass.
“From a filmmaker at the top of his game, this film is a living Vermeer, beautifully framed, elegant and elegiac, with an artistic vision that mirrors and augments its subject. This graceful and compelling work explores how beauty and creativity can transcend the harshness of life, and the jury believes it will be as rewarding in 40 years as it is today.” Grand Jury Award, Silverdocs, Sterling World Feature Price
Although witness to unspeakable horrors, eighty-five-year-old Svetlana Geier dedicated her life to language. Considered the greatest translator of Russian literature into German, Svetlana has just concluded her magnum opus, completing new translations of Dostoyevsky’s five great novels—known as “the five elephants.” As a precocious teenager living in Ukraine with an unusual facility for languages, Svetlana was brought to the attention of her country’s Nazi occupiers during World War II, and found uneasy refuge translating for them. She fled in 1943 and never returned … until now.
The film interweaves the story of Svetlana’s early life with her literary work, and follows her on her first trip back to her homeland after nearly six decades away, all the while revealing how a love of language outshines all else.
For more information on the film, go to www.5elefanten.ch or have a look at the Trailer.
FREE but places are limited so please RSVP to flore@scottishdocinstitute.com