“Dad says Mosche is up there in Heaven.”
“I didn't know there's Heaven for Jews.”
“Of course there is. Or do you think Heaven is the same for all people?”
“Anton” is the story of the unlikely friendship between two boys, one Catholic, the other Jewish, in a small Ukrainian village in 1919, a period characterized by political, ethnic and religious division.
“When you were telling those God-fearing colonists to hide their grain away, did you decide who would live or die?”
DALE EISLER
Screenwriter, “Anton”
“They were drawn together because as young boys they have similar interests. So the religious divide between them really didn't exist. It was there, but it didn't at all affect their close relationship.”
“Now it's yours. Now you are my brother.”
Screenwriter Dale Eisler adapted his historical fiction novel into a screenplay for the film, directed by Zaza Urushadze. He based the story on an important event in his own family's history.
DALE EISLER
Screenwriter, “Anton”
“My mother used to often talk about the day in 1919 when she saw her father, my grandfather, shot and killed by a Bolshevik militia, the soldiers who came to their village in Ukraine, near the Black Sea. And I was a journalist for many years and fascinated by the story, and I always wanted to tell it, but my mother would get very emotional when I would ask her about it.”
The film explores universal themes like childhood friendship as an antidote to conflict and division.
“It's not heaven if there's no friends... and especially you.”
Another theme not limited to any one time period is the migration of people in search of a better life.
DALE EISLER
Screenwriter, “Anton”
“I mean, we see that all the time. It's happening through generations, and it's going on today too. And that's what happened in those days too. A lot of the people who faced the persecution and the violence of revolution left to find a better life elsewhere.”
“Anton” shows the intersection between the world of these two young boys and the adult world, showing how powerful friendships can outlast even the most firmly rooted conflicts.
The film is available in the United States and Canada. It premieres in Spain on Feb. 12.
CT
European Dreams Factory
