Josef Koudelka
A close look at the legendary Magnum photographer Josef Koudelka's past, memories, his thoughts about photography, his stance on life and his emotional journey through 'Ruins', his last project, which is about the archaeological ruins of ancient cities in Mediterranean regions. Following the footsteps of Heraclitus over his quote that 'no man ever step in the same river,' Josef Koudelka revisits more than 200 Hellenistic and Roman ancient cities he photographed repeatedly over past 26 years. During this epic journey to Mediterranean regions, we witness the moments of joy, tenderness, and silence while focusing on Koudelka's both artistic and philosophical search for the 'maximum.'
Czech Photographer Josef Koudelka grew up behind the Iron Curtain and always wanted to know "what was on the other side". Forty years after capturing the iconic images of the Soviet invasion of Prague in 1968, the legendary Magnum photographer arrives in Israel and Palestine. On first seeing the nine-meter-high wall built by Israel in the West Bank, Koudelka is deeply shaken and embarks on a four-year project in the region which will confront him once again with the harsh reality of violence and conflict. Director Gilad Baram, Koudelka's assistant at the time, follows him on his journey through the Holy Land from one enigmatic and visually spectacular location to another.
The film tells the story of the intimate and unprecedented encounter between the photojournalists of the Magnum Agency and the world of cinema. The confrontation of two seemingly opposite worlds – fiction and reality. For 70 years their paths crossed: a family of photographers, amongst them the biggest names in photography, and a family of actors and filmmakers who helped write the history of cinema, from John Huston to Marilyn Monroe to Orson Welles, Kate Winslet and Sean Penn.
"A," a Greek filmmaker living in exile in the United States, returns to his native Ptolemas to attend a special screening of one of his extremely controversial films. But A's real interest lies elsewhere--the mythical reels of the very first film shot by the Manakia brothers, who, at the dawn of the age of cinema, tirelessly criss-crossed the Balkans and, without regard for national and ethnic strife, recorded the region's history and customs. Did these primitive, never-developed images really exist?
