Memory Is Our Homeland
Canada2018documentary90'Konkurs dokumentalny (2019)
Polish refugees in Africa? - very few people still remember this episode of the Second World War. Thousands of women and children had been deported to Soviet gulags, then left the Soviet Union and after many weeks of wandering found their temporary home in the villages of East Africa. The story is told using unique archival materials and direct testimonies of Polish refugees (one of them is the director's grandmother) who, in the early 1940s, reached the land unknown to them and spent the last years of the war there. The film sheds new light on the story, free from the interference of the historical policy or an ideological bias.
- directed by
- Jonathan Kolodziej Durand
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Jonathan Durand is a documentary filmmaker and photographer from Montreal, Canada. He studied Political Science and Philosophy at McGill University (BA), before spending several years living and working as an educator in Asia and East Africa. Since 2009, he has been pursuing a career as a director, cinematographer, and photographer. "Memory Is Our Homeland" is the culmination of a decade of research into his family's history as Polish WW2 refugees in Africa. It is his first feature-length film.
- cinematography
- Jonathan Kolodziej Durand
- script
- Jonathan Kolodziej Durand
- music
- Mikael Tobias, Colin Stetson
- editing
- Catherine Villeminot
- production
- Jonathan Kolodziej Durand
- Photo
- Trailer