Documentary film. Director and screenplay: Wojciech Kasperski, 2005.
In an out-of-the-way village cottage, surrounded by the Altai Mountains, somewhere on the border of Russia and Kazakhstan, lives a large family that is totally rejected by the village people. They live on the verge of poverty, barely making ends meet. Once, a great tragedy happened here and now everybody, both the parents and children, lives in its shadow. The main protagonist is the father, a former sailor, who himself says that he loses four hours a day for the preparation of meals for his children and his sick wife. He bears all the responsibility for the family and accepts it with humility. He has something of an old saint in him, someone the Russians call "yurodiviy." It is him who confesses in front of the camera that the evil happening to them is a constant punishment for a sin they committed in the past.
The film was realized as part of the cycle "Russia - Poland. New Gaze" / Rosja - Polska. Nowe spojrzenie" organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and Eureka Media.
"Wojciech Kasperski saw in his protagonist a character from a book by William Faulkner. But he seems to stand closer to Dostoyevsky's characters. In this film, we touch the same mystery, so difficult to comprehend, as in 'Poor Folk' or 'Crime and Punishment' - the mystery of suffering that releases love. The more suffering there is, the more love. When I watched this movie for the first time, the only thing I recognized was the image of suffering which one cannot deal with. After a second time, though, one sees something different." (Tadeusz Sobolewski, "Gazeta Wyborcza")
- Nasiona / The Seeds. Polska, 2005. Director and screenplay: Wojciech Kasperski. Cinematography: Szymon Lenkowski. Music: Philip Glass ("Koyannisqoatsi"). Editing: Tymek Wiskirski. Producer: Krzysztof Kopczynski. Production: Eureka Media, Telewizja Polska. Colour, 27 min.
Awards:
- Grand Prix - Golden Hobby-Horse [Złoty Lajkonik] - in the national competition of the Cracow Film Festival, 2006;
- Big Silver Nanook - award for best documentary at the International Documentary Film Festival "Flahertiana" in Perm, 2006;
- award for best short film at the Illinois Big Muddy Film Festival, 2006;
- Main Award in the category of documentaries at the AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival "Silverdocs" in Washington, 2006;
- special mention in the category of TV documentaries at the Prix Europa Festival in Berlin, 2006.
Source: the catalogue "Young Polish Cinema", published by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, June 2007