CERVINO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
6th edition
Breuil-Cervinia/Valtournenche, July 23rd-27th, 2003

THE COMPETITION

FULL-LENGTH FEATURES COMPETITION

ALEXEI TO IZUMI (Alexei and the Spring)
JAPAN, 2002, 104’, col., 35mm
Director Motohashi Seiichi
Script Motohashi Seiichi
Editing Muramoto Masaru
Music Ryuichi Sakamoto
Cinematography Ichinose Masafumi
Production SOSNA FILM

The Republic of Belarus, with its lush virgin forests and fertile soil, is known as “ White Russia ”. The worst nuclear accident in human history, Chernobyl (formerly part of the Soviet Union, now in the Republic of Ukraine), spewed radioactive contaminations across these lands.
An evacuation advisory was issued to southeastern Belarus, and most of the six hundred residents of Budische left their village, but fifty-five elderly people and one boy, Alexei, remained.
The forests surrounding their village, their farmlands, and their crops were all contaminated. Nevertheless the water of the village’s spring still flows with no trace of radioactivity. The inhabitants of the village are convinced that the water flowing from the source is more than one hundred years old.
The movie is about the village and the spring, described as “ richness in life ”. Sakamoto’s music highlights the surreality of the whole work.

DIRECTOR
Motohashi Seiichi was born in Tokyo in 1940. He attended the School of Photography in Tokyo. He began photographing Chernobyl and its surroundings in 1991, producing four photo collections on this matter (2002). Photographer and filmmaker, he directed Nadya’s Village in 1997 awarded at Okomedia Filmfestival and Berlin Filmfestival.

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Motohashi Seiichi