Agnieszka Grochowska in "Beyond the Steppes", photo: www.beyondthesteppes.com
Not a war film, not a historical film and certainly not an epic film, but an intimate, personal film instead, a personal journey inspired by the story of Vanja d'Alcantara’s grandmother who, in Beyond the Steppes becomes a fictitious character
The context of the story is the deportation of a young Polish woman and her baby by the Soviet Army to the USSR in 1940 where she is forced to work in a state-owned farm and forbidden to leave it. Against the backdrop of the stories of millions of Poles deported to Russia, the film main focus is on the woman's struggle to survive as opposed to the major historical events. There is a harsh contrast between the opening sex scene of the film showing warmth between man, woman and child, and her journey through the extreme conditions of the merciless steppes with a group of Kazakhstani nomads in search for medications for her sick child.
Still from "Beyond the Steppes", photo: www.beyondthesteppes.com
Nina the protagonist is a fictional character but Beyond the Steppes is according to Ray Bennett from Hollywood Reporter a re-telling of director Vanja d'Alcantara’s grandmother's story "presented with passion but without sentiment". From notes found after the grandmother’s death the filmmaker discovered how after having spent three years in Siberia, she crossed Uzbekistan and Iran, arrived in Bagdad where she awaited the end of the war to sail on the Nile into the Congo to meet her husband.
The Belgian Polish production from 2010 is Vanja d'Alcantara’s first feature film and portrays human struggle as something timeless and universal. In an interview she mentions having been driven to new limits and crossing unknown thresholds in an attempt to answer how far she herself would be able to go to survival. The filmmaker’s keen interest in history and anthropology translates into her filmmaking, she adds, "Obviously I have, as a woman, been curious to find out how other women face life. I have always felt attracted towards the unknown, discover my own self through other people and different cultures that is my true passion, actually".
Screening: June 2nd at 5:00 pm at O'Cinema in the Wynwood District, in Polish with English subtitles, length 90 min
The European Film Festival is produced by Red Chemistry Inc, a non-profit organization incorporated in Florida, which mission is to promote the art of independent filmmaking in South Florida.
Sources: European Film Festival Miami, Beyond the Steppes website press materials, Hollywood Reporter
Author: Marta Jazowska