This film is an emotional, figurative and historical study of the memories of people who were deported to Siberia as children on June 14, 1941. The film represents the sufferings of these victims in contrast to the beautiful landscapes of Siberia.
On June 14, 2009, a film crew, a number of children of Siberia who survived and returned to Latvia, and their children went on a pilgrimage to Siberia to install memorial plaques in memory of the mothers and children who were deported between 1941 and 1949.
One person who took the trip was Gunārs Toms, who became an orphan after his father perished in Vyatlag. “I have to say that to this very day I have not recovered peace in my soul after what I saw and experienced during a 120-kilometre pilgrimage from the village where my mommy, Alvīne Toma, was arrested, to the “mighty” KGB building in Yeniseysk, where there were interrogation rooms and a dungeon in which people were shot,” he says. There was the cemetery of the prison. The former death camp is still surrounded by barbed wire. And, finally, we put up a memorial plaque in the local museum.”
Viewers of the film will see places where deportees were settled – Krasnoyarsk, Yeniseysk, Igarka, Aban, Kansk, Dolgiy Most, Imbezh and Sukhanoy. The contents of the film are based on the memories of the children of Siberia, along with photographs and scenes of Siberia then and now.
During the summer of 2010, the film crew travelled to the Far North and the Tomsk District. We will present them in the second part of “Remember Siberia.”
The Documentary Film
“REMEMBER SIBERIA”
Director and producer: Dzintra Geka
Music: Pēteris Vasks
Camera: Aivars Lubānietis
Editor: Armands Zvirbulis
Assistant to the director: Baiba Ārenta
Video engineer: Jānis Kazulis
Sound: Normunds Deinats
Latvia
54min.
2010