Arsmedia

Genre: full-length documentary film
Duration: 95 min
Year: 2007
Screenplay: Miran Zupanič
Director: Miran Zupanič
Featuring: Ivan Ott, Ljuba Brglez, Terezija Cenc Osterman, Ditrih Karl Janič, Rudolf Ernst Janič, Bogomir Komidar, Herman Kuessel, Franc Helmut Kindlhofer, Agica Lorbek, Elica Nerat, Albina Podkoritnik, Guenter Slamer, Leon Turnšek.
Pictures, videos: ftp://ftp.arsmedia.si, (username: arsmedia-press, password: Arsmedia). For FTP access please use clients such as Filezilla, CyberDuck…

Story

“I never knew where I came from, who my ancestors were, and what part of Slovenia I was born in. I never knew what a family is, what a father is, what a mother is. I never knew these words.”

Leon Turnšek

Among us live the people who look just like everybody else. They were born between 1929 and 1944. They were hiding their secret for decades. They were compelled to keep silent. Not to say a word about what they lived through. Otherwise, they were threatened, the dark will take away them and the people they would reveal the secret to.
When they were children their parents were killed and the children were separated from their siblings and displaced to war orphanages, given away to foster families or were adopted. Some of them were too young to remember any of it; they just had a premonition something terrible had happened to them. It took them years to find out who they really were.
On 9th May 1945, the end of World War II in Europe set about the punishment of the defeated. The Allies established the Nürnberg Military Tribunal and by doing so showed they respected the moral and legal standards according to which also notorious criminals were given the right to a trial and were not condemned until proven guilty by the court. The same applied to lesser Nazi officials and followers of the Nazi political party. On the other hand, the punishing was different in countries governed by the communists. One such country was Yugoslavia. Precise number of the so-called nation’s enemies, killed in Yugoslavia after the 9th May 1945, without being tried, will never be known, but it certainly amounts to ten thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands. Of men, women and children.
The film The Children from Petriček Hill talks about those children’s destinies. About the children who were imprisoned together with their parents in the war camp Teharje at Celje. In June 1945 the children were separated from their parents and taken to a children camp, Petriček; their parents were killed without having been tried at a court and buried at unknown places. The children were submitted to a severe re-education, forced into abandoning their true identity and into assuming a new one. They lost their parents and their childhood, and they were inflicted wounds so deep that have not healed up to today.

Gallery

Crew

Screenplay: Miran Zupanič
Director: Miran Zupanič
Director of Photography: Janez Kališnik
Editor: Jaka Kovačič
Composer:Bojana Šaljić Podešva
Sound Designer: Igor Laloš
Producer: Franci Zajc

Featuring

Ivan Ott
Ljuba Brglez
Terezija Cenc Osterman
Ditrih Karl Janič
Rudolf Ernst Janič
Bogomir Komidar
Herman Kuessel
Franc Helmut Kindlhofer
Agica Lorbek
Elica Nerat
Albina Podkoritnik
Guenter Slamer
Leon Turnšek

Miran Zupanič

Born in 1961. He graduated in law and film and television directing from University of Ljubljana. He works as a university professor of film directing. He directs documentary and feature films. His feature films Operation Cartier and Radio.doc participated in many international film festivals and received several awards. Operation Cartier was awarded the Circom Regional Grand Prix Fiction in 1992 and Circom Regional Award in 1992 for Best Direction while in 1995 Radio.doc was awarded the Golden Metod Badjura Award.

Filmography:

1990 –Operation Cartier, television feature film
1993 –The Eyes of Bosnia, documentary film
1995 – Radio.doc, television feature film
2001 –Rascals!, feature film
2003 –Separations, documentary film
2004 –Kocbek-A poet in the Abyss of History, documentary film
2006 – Aufbiks!, documentary film
2007 – Made in Slovenia, short film
2007 –Children from Petriček Hill, documentary film

Co-producers

RTV Slovenia

Co-funding

Slovenian Ministry of Culture

Technical data

Format: Betacam PAL, 16:9 black&white

Festivals and awards

• Festival of Slovenian Film, Portorož, 7-14 October 2007, Slovenia.
Award for Best Feature Film
Award for Best Editing
Award for Best Music
• DokMa 2007 – International Documentary Film Festival, Maribor, Slovenia
In Competition
• Trieste Film Festival, Trieste, 17-24 January 2008, Italy.
Second Audience Award in the category of documentary film
• ZagrebDox Documentary Film Festival, Zagreb, 25 February -2 March 2008, Croatia.
• In Competition
• L’Europe Autour De L+Europe, Paris-Normandy, 4 -21 March 2008, France.
• Academy Award »Viktor« for Best Feature Documentary Film, 15 March 2008, Slovenia.
• Beldocs International Documentary Film Festival, Belgrade, 10 – 13 April 2008, Serbia.
• MITTELIMMAGINI, Cividale del Friuli, Italija, 24. 7. 2008
• Award »Erasmus EuroMedia Medal 2008«, Vienna, 10 October 2008, Austria.
• 30th International Mediterranean Film Festival, Montpellier, 24 October – 2 November 2008, France.

In Competition

• The film was publicly screened in Cleveland (USA), Gorizia (Italy), Stuttgart (Germany) and Sydney (Australia) on 8 February 2009.
• Slovenian National Award »Prešeren Fund Award 2009« for full-length documentary film Children from Petricek Hill, writer and director Miran Zupanič.