The UK Premiere of the film, on 1st October 2007, was a packed event at the Trocadero, presented, courtesy of Raindance, in High Definition format. Having been guilty of not paying attention to Britain’s largest indie event, I admire the low-budget ethos and enthusiasm with which it is run.
James Mullighan, Creative Director of Shooting People, conducts the Q&A with me which you can see in podcast form here – scroll down for various items on the film and its Raindance Q&A. Discovering the film for himself as we have neither distributor nor or publicist, James becomes one of the film’s champions, helping to put the word out on Shooting People via the above podcast page and other forums, and going on to provide valuable advice in how to release the film ourselves. Which we proceed to do!
More information
Thursday, 1 November 2007
Thursday, 14 June 2007
“TOVARISCH, I AM NOT DEAD” WINS TOP PRIZE AT BIOGRAFILM, BOLOGNA
I am very pleased to return from the 3rd Biografilm festival of Bologna, Italy, with the Lancia Award, awarded at the closing ceremony on June 10th.
(story continues below image...)
The Lancia Award is given to the director of the film which in, in the view of the festival, marks the most outstanding achievement in this festival dedicated to celebrating human lives.
Although Biografilm is a newish event on the festival calendar, it has given the Italian or European premieres to films such as Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man, Tarnation, KZ and works by Atom Egoyan, Paul Weitz, among others. There were 350 features entered, some of which had won awards at Tribeca, Amsterdam and other festivals.
There is something very emotional about receiving an award for such a personal topic, especially given the paradox that I could not really finish the film in the way I wanted while my father was alive, and therefore he could not be around to see this happen. I did feel that he was watching the award ceremony though, from somewhere.
Thanks so much to all those who helped so much in making the film and in supporting it!
(story continues below image...)
The Lancia Award is given to the director of the film which in, in the view of the festival, marks the most outstanding achievement in this festival dedicated to celebrating human lives.
Although Biografilm is a newish event on the festival calendar, it has given the Italian or European premieres to films such as Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man, Tarnation, KZ and works by Atom Egoyan, Paul Weitz, among others. There were 350 features entered, some of which had won awards at Tribeca, Amsterdam and other festivals.
There is something very emotional about receiving an award for such a personal topic, especially given the paradox that I could not really finish the film in the way I wanted while my father was alive, and therefore he could not be around to see this happen. I did feel that he was watching the award ceremony though, from somewhere.
Thanks so much to all those who helped so much in making the film and in supporting it!
Tuesday, 27 March 2007
He Escaped The Holocaust, Escaped the Gulag, And Managed to Live a Good Life. His Story is Captured in a New Documentary Film
A true and harrowing story, Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead is a valuable legacy of historical fact, available to all as both book and film. This site has been set up to provide information on this new independent documentary film based on the life of Garri S. Urban, an extraordinary man who experienced extreme hardships in the gulags of Stalin's Russia. He wrote in his own words from his own memories about his experiences in a vital, fascinating and enthralling book, which is almost impossible to put down. From the first invasion of the German forces into his homeland in 1939, the story follows Garri's courage in the face of adversity, torture, separation from his loved ones, imprisonment and finally, one of the most daring escapes ever to be documented.
His story illustrates the struggle against the oppression of Stalin's Soviet state at the height of its powers and the will to survive that is so often found in mankind, even at the very darkest times.
The film encapsulates the life of a remarkable man and provides an opportunity for the lessons he learnt to be shared. In addition to providing information about Garri Urban and the life he lived, we will in parallel be chronicling the journey of this documentary. Garri left a massive and important legacy that thanks to his own memoirs and his son's film, will never be forgotten. When he died in 2004, Garri's passing was noted by the world's media, a significant testament to the important role that he played in the lives of not only his loved ones, but also in the broader historical sense.
We would love your input, your views, your own family memories and experiences. You can help to develop the film. To say thank you we will provide you with the inside track on the film's development, pre-release clips, interviews, tickets and the chance to win some mementoes from the film.
His story illustrates the struggle against the oppression of Stalin's Soviet state at the height of its powers and the will to survive that is so often found in mankind, even at the very darkest times.
The film encapsulates the life of a remarkable man and provides an opportunity for the lessons he learnt to be shared. In addition to providing information about Garri Urban and the life he lived, we will in parallel be chronicling the journey of this documentary. Garri left a massive and important legacy that thanks to his own memoirs and his son's film, will never be forgotten. When he died in 2004, Garri's passing was noted by the world's media, a significant testament to the important role that he played in the lives of not only his loved ones, but also in the broader historical sense.
We would love your input, your views, your own family memories and experiences. You can help to develop the film. To say thank you we will provide you with the inside track on the film's development, pre-release clips, interviews, tickets and the chance to win some mementoes from the film.
Tuesday, 27 February 2007
What the Press Say About The Book and the Film
The proof of the pudding they say, is in the eating, and the critical response to the book since first publication has been very supportive. Here are just a few of the comments that Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead has received.
The Film
"Very powerful, very moving... an extremely strong piece of work" Geoffrey MacNab of The Guardian
"Touching, funny, emotional, covering many important issues" John Hopewell of Variety
"A film I shall never forget" John Daly, Producer of Platoon and The Last Emporer
The Book
"written with the narrative skill of a professional, this book became an international bestseller..." (The Times)
"a book of the 'can't put down kind'...to be treasured." (Variety)
"tragic, humorous...powerful, vivid, authentic." (The Jewish Chronicle)
"a most remarkable man, a most enthralling book!" (The Observer)
"eye-opening...remarkable. Despite the most dismal circumstances, he never portrays himself as a victim. ***** out of 5*s!" (R Chapulina, Amazon Top 500 Reviewer)
The Film
"Very powerful, very moving... an extremely strong piece of work" Geoffrey MacNab of The Guardian
"Touching, funny, emotional, covering many important issues" John Hopewell of Variety
"A film I shall never forget" John Daly, Producer of Platoon and The Last Emporer
The Book
"written with the narrative skill of a professional, this book became an international bestseller..." (The Times)
"a book of the 'can't put down kind'...to be treasured." (Variety)
"tragic, humorous...powerful, vivid, authentic." (The Jewish Chronicle)
"a most remarkable man, a most enthralling book!" (The Observer)
"eye-opening...remarkable. Despite the most dismal circumstances, he never portrays himself as a victim. ***** out of 5*s!" (R Chapulina, Amazon Top 500 Reviewer)
Monday, 12 February 2007
PUNTO de VISTA DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL, PAMPLONA, SPAIN
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 in a Spanish prison camp, thus surviving the war. Franco did not send Jews back to the Nazis, unlike the occupied French.
Visit the festival website
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Suggested Reading
Garri S. Urban: Tovarisch, I Am Not Dead This is the true and striking story by a Jewish doctor of his struggle for survival when caught in 1939 between the evils of Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia. After facing death from frontier patrols, a firing squad and torture, Urban arrives at a position of considerable power in Soviet society in a medical post. He risks his life again, fighting epidemics. These fascinating memoirs give a very rare glimpse of the Soviet Union in wartime, particularly into the exotic life of the Moiscow elite, where beautiful women, diplomats and spies mingled at parties and sex was used as a method of recruiting agents. Compassionate to the sick, defiant to authority, Garri S Urban courage
Ruth Kluger: Landscape of Memory - a Holocaust Girlhood Remembered Ruth Kluger is one of the child-survivors of the Holocaust. In 1942 at the age of 11, she was deported to the Nazi "family camp" Theresienstadt with her mother. They would move to two other camps before the war ended. This book is the story of Ruth's life. Of a childhood spent in the nazi camps and her refusal to forget the past as an adult in America. Not erasing a single detail, not even the inconvienient ones, she writes frankly about the troubled relationship with her mother even through their years of internment and her determination not to forgive and absolve the past.
Sir Martin Gilbert: The Holocaust A very thorough account of the experience of the Jews of Europe during World War II. This title gives a virtual day-by-day account, in men and women's own words, of the horrifying events of the Holocaust - the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewish race.
Anne Applebaum: Gulag The Pulitzer Prize winning narrative of the origins and development of the Soviet concentration camps. Based on archives, interviews and new research the book explains the role that the camps played in the Soviet political and economic system.
Richard Overy: Russia's War The astounding events of 1941-45 in which the Soviet Union, after initial catastrophes, destroyed Hitler's Third Reich and shaped European history for the next fifty years.
Willy Peter Reese: A Stranger to Myself: The Inhumanity of War: Russia, 1941-1944 The haunting memoir of a young German soldier on the Russian front during World War II. Willy Peter Reese was only twenty years old when he found himself marching through Russia with orders to take no prisoners. Three years later he was dead.
Slavomir Rawicz: The Long Walk The story of a young Polish cavalry officer who was arrested by the Russians, tortured and sentenced to 25 years forced labour. His escape and journey across the Gobi desert to Tibet and freedom.
Jean-Francois Steiner: Treblinka This is without a doubt one of the better books about the death camps. You will become intimately acquainted with Treblinka and the Nazis who ran it. Steiner's book is well-written and does justice to the horror.
- Rodric Braithwaite: Moscow 1941Sunday Times review - ‘a wide-ranging and excellent account...Braithwaite never shirks the terrible truths
Suggested Films
Schindlers List
The 2004 release telling the true stroy of Schindlers attempts to save Jewish workers from the horrors of the German camps....
The Story Of The Gulag Runaway
In Stalinist Russia, Chabua Amiredjibi endured years of imprisonment, backbreaking punishment, horrific torture, and two death sentences. But his broken life and ill health did not kill his hope of gaining freedom. In all, he managed six escapes from Stalin's Gulag Camps. He stood up, fought and survived.
The 2004 release telling the true stroy of Schindlers attempts to save Jewish workers from the horrors of the German camps....
The Story Of The Gulag Runaway
In Stalinist Russia, Chabua Amiredjibi endured years of imprisonment, backbreaking punishment, horrific torture, and two death sentences. But his broken life and ill health did not kill his hope of gaining freedom. In all, he managed six escapes from Stalin's Gulag Camps. He stood up, fought and survived.