Petr Szczepanik

The Czech film avant-garde. A unique artistic direction of the 1920s and 1930s with great persons of Czech culture like Vítězslav Nezval, Jaroslav Seifert, Alexander Hackenschmied, Jan Kučera and many others being mentioned. However, is it really a forgotten landmark of the Czech cinematography or an artificial construct, created subsequently by film history?

Thatta Kedona is a remarkable village in rural Pakistan. Since 1991 36 volunteers from Western countries have visited and coached the village people in a help to self help project. Dolls and tin toys reflecting regional cultures of Pakistan are products which generate cash income for the farming families through the local cooperative-like NGO. On the other side those volunteers from Western countries are also having their fun by working in a rural village of Islamic society with strong overlays by the traditional culture of Indus Valley, the Mogul period, Hindu culture and the influences of British-India. Hence the playfulness of a "toy village" is on both sides. For the villagers by producing toys for cash in a not-yet industrialized region avoiding rural exodus to the big cites (and thus avoiding the poverty slums that are generated by migration). And joy for Western people being confronted by their own history stages in present time within a foreign context.