Tovarisch Shortlisted for Grierson Award

I am pleased to announce that Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead is on today’s shortlist of 8 titles for the Grierson, Britain's top theatrical documentary prize, competing for the UK Film Council Best Cinema Documentary award against not only UK but international films, of which 3 are Oscar winner/nominees and one a Sundance award winner - but you never know...

View the Grierson Trust website

PUNTO de VISTA DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL, PAMPLONA, SPAIN

Punto de Vista - credit to Luis Dias

Although Pamplona is slightly better know for its running bulls than its cutting edge new documentary festival, I call upon everyone who loves animals to flock to the city for the film event and thereby save the lives of those frightened beasts who are sacrificed each summer (and the odd drunken tourist whom they gore now and then). Hopefully we can make the Pamplona film run the hot ticket event.

Dana and I had a lovely sojourn during this impeccably-managed event in the old city. I was touched, and should not have been surprised as a historian, by the fact that Spanish and Basque people take to the film because they know all too well the horrible legacy of totalitarian terror in the last century in their civil war and Franco’s repression. I guess this is why the film won the Audience Award (Premio del Publico)

This town has almost no Jewish population, but in another moving moment, two middle-aged Jewish brothers come over after the show.Their father only survived the war by an irony – a volunteer for the Republican forces from France, he was incarcerated by the Fascists in a Spanish prison camp, thus surviving the war. Franco did not send Jews back to the Nazis, unlike the occupied French.

Find out more about the festival

Latest Film News

We have just heard from Stuart Urban (the director of Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead) and the documentary is nearing completion - read on for a message direct from Stuart Urban!

Stuart Urban writes:

"We are coming towards the home straight on completing the documentary, Tovarisch I Am Not Dead, after only a mere 15 years or so in the making! Spread across that time and in several countries, I have been doing video diaries, research, interviews, archive investigations, consulting historians, tracking people down … and so much more, all in the cause of investigating one of the 20th Century's more remarkable survivors and escapers – my father. I have worked with superb collaborators on the artistic, organisational and investigational fronts, been arrested a couple of times in the former Soviet Union in the course of making the film by organs of state security, and been cheated of money by people who should have known better. Depending on what festival home the film first finds, we will announce further news as soon as it comes. We have no champions or powerful voices acting on behalf of the film but we hope its subject matter will speak for itself!”

The World of Documentaries

Okay folks, you get to vote: I'm putting some links here to sources of information about documentary films. If you think they're useful, I'll put them on a Typelist and run them down the side of the page. If they're too vanilla, or you know them all already, they'll just sit here unwanted, unnoticed and unloved... waiting for someone to click on them.

The first lot come from Wikipedia's article on documentary films. It includes links to:

The Documentary Filmmakers Group

Documentary Educational Resources

Documentary Films.Net

International Documentary Association

Docuseek (with zero matches for the Gulag and 71 titles regarding the Holocaust)

We Need Your Help

Did we get it right? Makers of documentaries have to ask the question. Tovarisch, I'm Not Dead covers incidents that happened 60 years ago. Many of those who could serve as technical consultants on this film have passed on, and those still with us are advanced in age.

But they may have talked to you. They might have given you a journal, diary or reconstruction written after the fact. You might have been there as a child, and you might retain vivid memories of the subject matter of this film.

If you have been to Yahoo! recently, you may have noticed that they now have a feature that allows you to ask questions on any topic, or provide answers. This feature is exploiting a phenomenon that was recently explored in a book called The Wisdom of Crowds. With more than 1 billion people using the Internet, it is almost certain that somebody, somewhere knows the answer to almost any question.

Crowd-sourcing is simply asking a group of people for help. We want to make sure that Tovarisch, I'm Not Dead is as accurate and realistic as is possible. Here on this website we will post footage, writing, interviews, audio and music that may be incorporated into the documentary. Quite simply, we want you to help us get it right. Use the Comments feature if you like. Email us if you want.

In the rest of this post (below), we'll talk about some of the issues regarding media--some of you might have photos or film footage that you think might make the film more effective. We'll talk about that.

It might be tempting to send us some photographs or offer to give us film footage from the period covered by our documentary Tovarisch, I'm Not Dead. We're equally tempted to ask you for it.

The problem is, who owns the copyright to the pictures and film that you want to submit? If you own it, it is yours to distribute as you will. But if someone gave it to you, or you found it in a basement somewhere... the problems begin to arise.

We cannot pay for additional pictures or film, which may dampen your enthusiasm somewhat. And, if we do include your material in the film, it may be used somewhere else--if excerpts of the film are shown on the telly or in a short version, it might include the material you sent us. That might dampen your enthusiasm further.

If, after all this cautionary language, you still think you have material that you think would help the film, we'd like you to contact us. If we agree that the material would help make Tovarisch, I'm Not Dead a better documentary, we will try to reach an agreement with you on how to use it and protect your rights to further usage of the material. We will probably try to use a version of the Creative Commons licensing scheme that will give us limited permission to use your material and leave you with the rights to use it thereafter. It's worth a try.

Spread the Word

Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead is an independent film, produced by Cyclops Vision. Obviously, independent films don’t have big Hollywood budgets, nor do they have the vast studio marketing muscle behind them.... you won't be seeing wall to wall television adverts for Tovarisch anytime soon.....but these films, as well as being works of art, are an important part of our culture because they record the last eye witness testimony to the most monstrous events of the twentieth century and show exactly how the survivors were affected.
The team behind this film are hoping to enter Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead into numerous film festivals, ranging from stellar events such as The Sundance Film Festival to local film festivals, festivals concentrating on documentaries and festivals focused upon certain sections of society, such as the Jewish community or those with an interest in human rights and history. Should this happen the film will receive increased media attention and Garri's story will be made accessible to a much larger audience.... But how can you help?
Well, the more people that are aware of this film, the more chance that we have of having applications to all the major film festivals accepted.

We will do everything we can behind the scenes to promote the film, but if you are able to tell others about the film then that would be a great help.... and if you feel that you represent a specialist community or educational establishment and would like a screening of the film to be arranged please contact us HERE. Tell us who you are and why you would like to have the film shown - give us your contact details and we may be able to arrange it for you!

Please feel free to invite your friends and family to view this site for information about the film, and remember to keep your eyes on our updates for news on early screenings and cinema dates.... and if you have any good ideas for promoting the film then just drop us a line!

Many thanks.