ZHALANASH – EMPTY SHORE

ŻALANASZ – PUSTY BRZEG

Eponymous Zhalanash is a port city over the Aral Sea. This place between a great water and a vast desert which used to be a prosperous link of the Soviet economy is just a shadow of its former glory today. In Marcin Sauter’s film, Zhalanash is not only about evocative landscape, but, above all, about the fates of people who invested their hopes and expectations into the place between the sea and the desert and now ponder over their solitude among the wrecks of ships and port cranes.

  • Genre: Documentary
  • Country: Poland
  • Running time: 40
  • Year: 2017
  • Color: kolorowy

Director: Marcin Sauter

Script: Marcin Sauter

DOP: Marcin Sauter

Music: Jerzy Rogiewicz

Editing: Michał Marczak, Ziemowit Jaworski, Katarzyna Orzechowska

Sound: Marcin Lenarczyk

Production company: Studio Filmowe KRONIKA

Trailer

About the director:

Marcin Sauter

Marcin Sauter

Photographer, cinematographer and film director. Born in 1971 in Bydgoszcz. A member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers, he has had several dozen individual exhibitions of photography. He teaches at the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing. He established the foundation The Bydgoszcz Newsreel. His adventure with the cinema started in 1997 when he cooperated with Maciej Cuske on the feature film "What Do You Think About It, Gałuszko?". Then, he continued with such documentaries as "The Travelling Cinema" (2005), "North From Calabria" (2009) and "Hakawati" (2011).

At festivals:

57. Krakow Film Festival, Poland, 2017 (The Award of the Polish Filmmakers Association)

25th Camerimage Film Festival, Poland, 2017 (Golden Frog — Grand Prix)

IDFA, The Netherlands, 2017 (IDFA Award for Best Short Documentary)

Budapest International Documentary Festival, Hungary, 2018 (Best Film)

Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, Greece, 2018 (competition)

Docudays UA, Ukraine, 2018 (Special Mention)

TRT Documentary Awards, Turkey, 2018 (Best Documentary Award)

15th Neisse Film Festival, Germany, 2018 (screening)

Encounters South Arfican IDFF, South Africa, 2018 (competition)

Cinemambiente, Italy, 2018 (competition)

Dokufest, Kosovo, 2018 (competition)

MakeDox, Macedonia, 2018 (competition)

Clique Film Festival, Kazakhstan, 2018 (competition)

ETNOFILM Čadca 2018, Slovakia, 2018 (Award of the Festival Director)

18th WatchDocs Film Festival, Poland, 2018 (competition)

Antarctis Film Festival, Antarctica, 2019 (screening)

Budapest Architecture Film Days, Hungary, 2019 (competition)

Urban Eye FF, Romania, 2019 (competition)