Last Folio / Posledný portrét

documentary
58 mins (TV), 80 mins (cinema)
Katya Krausova, Yuri Dojč
(2015)
United Kingdom, Slovakia

Our story begins in Bratislava on a cold and grey day in January 1997 at the funeral of Ludovit Dojc, where his son, Yuri Dojc, meets a very determined old woman, Mrs. Vajnorska, whose sole life’s work is visiting the survivors, those who live alone and can no longer get out of their homes or out of their beds – she visits them daily and brings news of the outside world. The encounter with that determined old lady inspires Yuri, he has the idea of recording the faces and later stories of the people she is visiting. What a dramatic departure from his usual commercial work and his famous nudes, work for which he has collected many plaudits. At first it is just her circle of friends and later the circle widens to their friends and friends of their friends. A decade later he has over hundred and fifty portraits, hundred and fifty stories: and that is just the beginning of his emotional, powerful, personal journey. It comes to an end when Yuri finds an old prayer-book amongst number of antique books from the Second World War. This prayer-book belonged to Yuri’s grandfather Jakub Deutsch, who died in Auschwitz, and it remains an only reminiscence of him.