RETURN TO AUSCHWITZ
CROATIA 43 MIN
RUSSIAN PREMIERE
ABOUT
Return to Auschwitz takes us back almost seventy years to a time when life of an individual was nothing but a number and to a place where the destiny of many became a part of a frightening statistics of Nazi death camps and their “industry of death”. Our protagonist Mr. Oleg Mandic who was eleven years old at the time of his imprisonment along with his mother and grandmother became the last prisoner who left the biggest and the most infamous Nazi camp alive. The moment of their official liberation is caught on film by a Russian news camera as you will see in this film. Now seven decades later we return to Auschwitz along with Oleg who is a bridge between our present and the terrifying past he witnessed. On the one side we have Oleg as a eleven years old boy fighting for his life and on the other our contemporary who leads us through the camp and his incredible story. This documentary film surpasses our protagonist as an individual because the Auschwitz prison camp gate that closed behind him as he left that place as the last prisoner marked an end and a beginning of a new era.
DIRECTOR
IGOR PAULIC
Born in 1973 in Rijeka, Croatia. Author of films: "LOST" (short, First place at the International Film Festival "MOVIEPOET" USA 2013); "DRIP" (short, GRAND PRIX at the International Amateur Film Festival "KRAF" in Rijeka 2011 and Second place at "Moj film festival" in Umag 2012); "M&M FOREVER" (short, Official selection at the Orange Rid Film Festival Ohio USA 2011); "BUS STATION" (short 2009). Currently employed as a TV cameraman at a local TV house "Kanal Ri".
OTHER FESTIVALS
- Salón Internacional de la Luz in Bogotá D.C. Colombia 2014
- 12th Liburnia Film Festival, Croatia 2014 (Special Mention of the Jury)
- 46th Revija hrvatskog filmskog stvaralaštva, Croatia 2014 (Special Mention oh the Jury)
SECTION
Main Competition 2015