THE FILM “CASTAWAYS” AWARDED AT ANN ARBOR POLISH FILM FESTIVAL
Ann Arbor Polish Film Festival ended last Sunday in the American city of Ann Arbor. A documentary film “Castaways” by Sławomir Grunberg and Tomasz Wiśniewski has been awarded with The Ewa Pieta Award for The Best Non-Feature Film. The prize for the best debut was given to the film “Fourth Partition” by Adrian Prawica.
Ann Arbor Polish Film Festival is a Polish diaspora festival organized in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The first edition took place in 1993 and since then the event is constantly growing. This year's festival took place from November 8th till November 10th, and the program consisted of fourteen titles, both documentaries and feature films.Traditionally the festival jury has selected two films to be awarded with main festival prizes. A documentary film “Castaways” directed by Sławomir Grunberg and Tomasz Wiśniewski has been awarded with The Ewa Pieta Award for The Best Non-Feature The prize for the best debut was given to film “Fourth Partition” by Adrian Prawica.
The film “Castaways” tells a story of dramatic events happening on the route of trains that were transporting Jews from the Białystok region to the death camp in Treblinka. The transportation route led through Łapy, a town where trains would slow down significantly. Some parents threw their children out of the train windows to save them from death. The documentary presents the accounts of eyewitnesses who remember the shocking cases of deaths as well as those of miraculous survival
More information at Ann Arbor Polish Film festival website.