Podkarpatská Rus

In 1937, Carpathian Ruthenia is still as we want to know it. “Karpathorussland,”announces the German screen title of the Czechoslovak film, “is a unique, romantic country, forming a bridge between the culture of the West and of the East.” A bridge, where Mukachevo's modern spirit exists side by side with men lugging wood, the processing of flax, cowherds dancing to the rhythms of folk music. Footage of Polish and Romanian border guards, however, is a premonition that bridges can be trod with army boots, and that the rhythm of local life would soon be dictated by gunfire. (Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival)