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Director's Statement
Fall 1993. Hamburg. Lea Gahut, 24, dies in hospital following the complications of a massive stroke.
Some time thereafter, a cache of 874 poems and 916 letters, of exceptional beauty and vision, was discovered on the outskirts of a small village in the east of Slovakia. They were unearthed from a Semljanka, a crude underground shelter, where they were found scattered around and an um containing the ashes of Lea's mother who died, in 1976, when Lea was seven years-old. As it was found, the Semljanka was also filled with burning candles. Lea wrote these poems and letters to her mother and sent them year after year, from wherever she happened to live, until her own death in 1993. The secret of this strange relationship is finally aired by the village postman who delivered Lea's letters to her mother's grave.
The remarkable love story that emerges from these poems and letters inspired me to write the following screenplay.
Two years ago, I wrote the preface to a non-existent screenplay and sent it to friends to test their reactions. Everyone wanted to read the it. Encouraged, I fleshed-out the story into an expos6 which I then sent to official channels. Again, it was met with curiosity — people asked to read it. Of all the reactions to this story, the screenplay that followed and finally the film, one central question kept emerging: "Is this a true story?"
As I looked into the eyes of all these questioning people I felt that I had to nod yes, if for no other reason than not to disappoint them. At the beginning I felt somewhat awkward as I nodded my head. In time, however, I became so confident that I myself came to believe that it actually was a true story.
The film is finished now. As it makes its way into the world I have traded the blissful dream of the storyteller for the harder contours of reality — and no longer nod my head.
To the many people I have swindled during this time, I beg their forgiveness. The fact is that in certain instances cinema induces us to lie. Perhaps this is necessary in order to contemplate the truth.