BELA BELA / WHAT KEEPS MANKIND ALIVE

A film by Marjoleine Boonstra

Director: Marjoleine Boonstra
Camera: Goert Giltaij, Marjoleine Boonstra
Music: Loek Dikker
Produced by: Pieter van Huystee Film & TV
Premiere: International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam 2001

Bela Bela/What Keeps Mankind Alive is a film about four poets who used their minds and their imagination to survive under what must be the most difficult circumstances of life - imprisonment under a dictatorial regime. The poets mentioned are the Russian writers Nizametdin Akhmetow and Irina Ratushinskaya, Maria Elena Cruz Varela from Cuba and the Romanian Mircea Dinescu. All four of them received the Poetry International Award of Honour, the annual prize that honours imprisoned poets.

Director Marjoleine Boonstra approaches the poets by focusing on the sensory experiences of their imprisonment and of the period afterwards. She considers these sensory experiences to be the key to the stories about how they endured hell. The confrontation with what their children have said about the image they have of their parents, leads to revealing moments in the film.

The circumstances under which these writers were imprisoned and their reactions to them show marked differences. As a result the film portrays various ways in which people are able to keep going under miserable circumstances and under a constant threat of death.

'My first impression of the smell was terrible. I almost had to be vomit when I entered the prison. I had to go downstairs and with every step I descended further into a heavy, stale smell that became more and more dense. As if I was descending into a syrupy liquid. As if I was being submerged in stinking mud.' Nizametdin Akhmetow

'Physical contact was impossible. I still remember vividly that they came to get me one day to take fingerprints. And when the officer took my hand, I almost collapsed through pure emotion of feeling a hand touching mine.' Maria Elena Cruz Varela

'Everything was grey there. Our uniforms, those of the guards. Even the sky above Moldavia seemed to usually be grey. After having lived in a colourless world for a few years, I had never expected on being released that it would be so hard to stand freedom's explosion of colour.' Irina Ratushinskaya

'By writing poetry I realized that it was a weapon. In the system at that time words were very important. That proved to be the case. If I had used a gun in those days, I would have ended up in jail. And nobody would have heard from me since. But I used a few words. And suddenly those words together turned into a real revolution.' Mircea Dinescu

Marjoleine Boonstra brought the poets together in a strange city on the Italian island Favignana off the Sicilian shore. It looks like a surrealistic metropolis with huge towers. Here the writers talk about their memories.