TRF Maletsky ENPRO

Genre: Documentary
Format: PAL / SECAM, DV-Cam, DV-Avi
Runtime: 27:02 min
Languages: RU (orig.), EN, FR, DE
Trailers: 1:46 (EN), 3:27 (EN)

Awards: First prize at the XXII International Festival of Niepokalanow (PL) 2007; National Award of the Polish Television, Niepokalanow, 2007; First prize at the Polish Multimedia Festival “Polskie Ojczyzny 2007”

Topic: Antony Maletsky became priest to fight against the decadence of morals, founding many charity initiatives for youth, as Don Bosco. The Soviet regime closed all Catholic orphanages and schools, and soon Father Antony Maletsky was persecuted and sent into exile for his clandestine activity, and for his secret consecration as Bishop, up to the final exile in Poland.

Plot: A today baptism  allows the narrator to associate to the moment of babtism of Father Antony Maletsky. Born and grown up in an era, where serfdom was to be abolished and industrialization started on a large scale, Antony realized the moral decline in the cities and it's consequences. Through quotations taken from his writings and from writings of his contemporaries the spectator get's acquainted with the moral problems of the late 19th century in St. Petersburg and other great cities which led to an unusual high number of children born out of wedlock. After having received the priestly ordination, Antony Maletsky decided to follow the example of Don Bosco in Italy, where he had had occasion to visit, and created an educational structure for the many orphaned children in St. Petersburg. Fr. Krzysztof Pozharsky, dean of the Parish of Saint Stanislaw, where Maletsky carried out his first priestly assignment, tells us about this outstanding personality. Alexander Shiker, the sacristan of the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in St. Petersburg, whose father was personally present at the bishop's ordination, tells us about the pastoral situation in the time of Antony Maletsky, about the unique occasion of the Corpus Christi procession in 1918 in St. Petersburg, and later about the conditions in the underground theological seminary, founded by Maletsky after 1925. The story goes on about the repressions the Church, and with her Maletsky himself, had to undergo from the side of the government, the imprisonment and liberation in '25, the secred ordination of Maletsky by Bishop Michel d'Herbigny, his repeated arrests and final exiliation to Siberia, and last but not least about his return and death from exhaustion in Warshaw, on his way to Rome, where he was summoned to report to the Holy Father. A final reflection about the development of the Catholic Church in Russia to the present day concludes the excurs into history with the initial scene of the baptism.

Artistic Considerations: In harmonious manner the film alternates between valuable interviews and precious historic material. A special mention preserves the series of original photographs of the institution Antony Maletsky build up in St. Petersburg, following the example of saint Giovanni Bosco in Italy. The richness of cinematographic recordings about the misery of children in the first half of the 20th century in Russia gives the film a striking aspekt of authenticity. The sensitive use of classic musical themes rounds up the picture the author intended to draw from Bishop Antony Maletsky.