Description
The fathers over there, 63 min., Studio SB, Y2016. DVD, NTSC
online movie, latvian with english subtitles,
Producer and director Dzintra Geka-Vaska
Screenplay Ēriks Lanss
Camera Aivars Lubānietis, Viktors Grībermans
Sound and video editor Armands Zvirbulis
Music Pēteris Vasks
Studio SB, 2016.
THE FATHERS OVER THERE
A Documentary Film by Dzintra Geka-Vaska
Agris Šēfers spent 10 years in prison, returned to Latvia, took part in the barricades, lives in an unfinished little house, and says “everything for Latvia down to the last drop of sweat and blood, everything for Latvia…”
“The Fathers Over There” shows a prison in Astrakhan, where Mārtiņš Bisters was imprisoned. The Vladimir prison, where Gunārs Rode spent many years in solitary confinement because the administration of the prison camp could not tolerate his spirit of opposition. Kārlis Čika-Grīnerts spent a quarter century in prison because he would not confess to any crime.
Andris Caune, Ojārs Grensbergs, Imants Grāvītis and Jānis Zemtautis spent many years in the Gulag camps. They survived.
In 1954, a riot broke out in Jezkazan, Kazakhstan. The men’s camp and women’s camp joined together and held on for 40 days. Then came the tanks that killed more than 1,000 of them. Austra Vērpe met her future husband there. They were lucky to stay alive.
The dream of the musician Zigfrīds Muktupāvels was to find the grave of his paternal uncle in far-off Kazakhstan. He was named after his uncle, who never came home. Zigfrīds and a cousin headed off into the steppes to look for a monument reading “Zigfrīds Muktupāvels.”
The next round of deportations occurred in 1949, and whole families were sent to Siberia. Fathers were tried in court, a great many ended up in punitive camps in Vorkuta and Inta. Skaidrīte Jostmane and Māris Landers travelled to Vorkuta to find their father’s gravesite.
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