Wheelchair accessible, English subtitling
Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival is proud to present Dawn (Ausma) as part of its inaugural edition. Directed by Laila Pakalniņa, one of Latvia's most prolific and internationally acclaimed directors , Dawn is a visually arresting film, which has been awarded the Jury Prize for the Best Cinematographer at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in 2015.
Dawn is based on a famous Soviet propaganda legend about a “Young Pioneer” (a Soviet equivalent to the boy scouts) Pavlik Morozov, who denounced his father to Stalin’s secret police and was in turn killed by his family. His fate exemplified the moral duty of all good Soviet citizens: the good of the state as the highest value.
78 years later, in Laila Pakalniņa's film, Pavlik is called little Janis. He is a young pioneer who lives in the Soviet collective farm called ‘Dawn’. His father is the enemy of the collective farm, and the Soviet system as such, who plans to burn down the farm's headquarters. Little Janis betrays his father, and the father takes revenge on his son.
Content notes: Depictions and discussions of violence and state oppression.
Access notes: Black and white cinematography, bright images.
Curated by Natalia Guzevataya
Director’s Statement
I’ve always been convinced that films should arise from sorrow or from joy. AUSMA [Dawn], however, is a particularly singular film – I didn’t know that sorrow and joy could be so simultaneous. Like dying and being born at the same time.
I could tell you that in creating this film I was playing around with the old Soviet fairytale, but that’s not really the case – I did very little playing around with the story. It was more playing around with the energy…
What’s more, I don’t want to say that it’s all so complicated. It isn’t. I’d just rather not use words to describe what I do, using imagery and sound, that is, in making a film.
Director’s biography
One of the most internationally recognized Latvian film directors. Laila Pakalniņa was already deemed an exceptional film auteur in international circles with her first shorts, Veļa (The Linen, 1991, her VGIK graduation work), Prāmis (The Ferry, 1994) and Pasts (The Mail, 1995). In 1996 The Ferry and The Mail were screened at Cannes as part of the Un Certain Regard programme, receiving the international film critics’ FIPRESCI award. Since then, Laila Pakalniņa’s films have been screened at the most noted film festivals in Europe as well as abroad, including Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, Rome, Amsterdam, Leipzig, Nyon, Hong Kong, Pusan, Toronto, Telluride, New York, and more. Laila Pakalniņa has twice been nominated for a European Film Academy award – for the documentary Leiputrija (Dreamland, 2004) and the short Uguns (Fire, 2008). Laila Pakalniņa has made almost 40 films – 5 features, 26 documentaries, and 5 shorts. She has also acted as scriptwriter and producer on most of them.