East of Paradise

East of Paradise is the final instalment of underground filmmaker Lech Kowalski’s The Fabulous Art of Surviving trilogy, which is dedicated to the countries of the East. In this most personal of his films, the director’s mother Maria Werla describes her deportation during the Second World War to a Siberian Gulag. With uncommon accuracy and a natural feeling for words she speaks about the brutality of the wardens, the harsh working conditions in icy coldness, the never-ending journeys through the no-man’s-lands of civilisation in filthy livestock wagons full of vermin. In the second part of this documentary essay, Kowalski responds to the horror and tragedy of his mother’s accounts with clips from his earlier works, which are dedicated to the no-man’s-lands of modern society, to the porn, drug and punk scenes of New York in the 70s and 80s. A daring and provocative parallel is drawn between those at the bottom of today’s social spectrum and the displaced individuals of the 40s, between the victims of Soviet dictatorship and those of the capitalist regime, between his mother’s tragedy and his own life of protest and rebellion. (DOK.fest München)