Children in Exile

My friend Chris Swider's documentary Children in Exile (trailer) has its Chicago premiere at the Gallery Theater next Friday, April 18, at 7:00. Chris will be there to answer questions.

From the press release:

Children in Exile focuses on a lesser-known World War II tragedy, the deportation of millions of Polish children and teenagers to Soviet Siberia. While the atrocities carried out by the Nazis are well documented, this Soviet enacted crime has been relatively ignored by historians and filmmakers alike - until now. Interviews with actual survivors of the tragedy, coupled with historic photographs and artistic renderings of the terrible event, make for a chilling and heart-wrenching movie experience.

Those "artistic renderings" are artworks made by schoolchildren after a classroom visit by some of the survivors. It's a unique way of attempting to show, from a child's-eye view, what life was like in the gulag.

The film has already screened at the 10th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, the San Luis Obispo Film Festival (where it won the Best Short Documentary award), the Anchorage International Film Festival, and several other venues.