TRL Life and Death ENPRO

Genre: Thematic Short Film
Format: PAL/SECAM, DV-Cam, DV-AVI
Runtime: 3:44 min
Languages: EN
Series: "Life in the U.S.S.R."

Topic: Atheism denies the existence of God, the soul and immortal life. There is no opposition between good and evil, there are no lofty feelings – there are only material interests. For communists, death was the end of everything. Hunger and death from the Stalinist terror lurked among the people. A life was not worth a kopeck, but often those who were arrested wanted to live so badly that they were willing to accuse falsely their acquaintances in order to survive – even at that price.

Plot: Memories of the horrors of war, of people dieing for their homeland, give the introduction to this short film. But also before and after the war, that is in the times of Lenin and Stalin, death always hang over the country in various forms. In the fear of death people showed the most vile characteristics, from the betraying of their neighbours until participating personally in the arrest and execution of innocent people. But in the camps the situation was different. People hang desperately on their life trying to survive this inhumane reality. Intimidation as a method of ruling over people was the ground on which the Soviet Regime developed its sofisticated system of terror. Extreem state atheism changed thoroughly men's attitude towards death. The recovery from this mental and spiritual distortion is a long and painstaking process which will still need a long time.

The Series: By breaking the traditional family and religion, taking control of children’s education, prying into spouses’ bedrooms and even the minds of people with the system of denunciations, refusing people respect and their basic rights, the government corrupted the country’s population. This series wants to shed light on some of these realities using sometimes opposing points of view in the choice of interviews and supporting the explained problematic with corresponding video materials. These short films may be useful as support material in talk-shows or educational programs. Other themes may be developed in future.

Other short films of the series:

• Communist Ideology
• Happy childhood
• Opium for the People
• Repression Machine
• Soviet Families
• Youth