LETTERS FOR POLA
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“Letters for Pola” is a documentary feature film about the filmmaker Christina who obsessively searches to find out who her great aunt Pola was and why her career abruptly ended after her last expedition into the Amazon forest.
It was 1929. August Brückner, Pola’s husband, was leading the expedition after he had successfully filmed a cultural film in the Amazon forest four years prior to this expedition. In 1926/27 August, director and DP, and Pola, screenwriter, successfully collaborated on a film in Senegal, Africa and this time Pola was tasked to accompany him in Brazil. They would be joined by Arthur Heye, the funder of the expedition, and his wife Ruth as well as Edgar Eichhorn who would serve as the cinematographer. When August succumbs to his illness half way through the filming of the expedition, Pola decides to take it into her own hands to finish what her husband set out to do. When her crew leaves her abandoned, she manages to put together a new crew and finish the film under the title “Urwaldsymphonie – Die Grüne Hölle.” Yet, upon her return to Germany in 1930, the political and cultural landscape has changed and something must have happened that caused her career to abruptly end. This is where Christina works alongside Brazilian anthropoligist, Elena, to uncover the long lost truths of her great aunt’s past.
Christina visits a number of archives from Poland to Berlin to paint a picture of Pola’s past but with every new document she finds in the archives more questions than answers arrise. She learns of a third husband, uncovers that her husband’s brother was a member of the NSDAP which raises questions about Pola’s own political activities and discovers that Edgar Eichhorn and his brother possibly took credit of the film she finished. As she searches for answers, she realizes that to learn about what really happened during the expedition she must take the journey that Pola and August took almost 100 years ago. She decides to travel to Brazil where she traces their fateful journey on the Amazon River.
Christina’s discovery brings to the forefront the Amazon Forest. In comparing the archival footage that they shot almost 100 years ago and using Pola’s book as a guide, she sees how human presence has changed the lungs of mother earth and learns new facts about her great aunt. With the help of Elena, she searches for indigenous tribes that Pola and August met along the way and comes across the very dangers that Pola and August once faced too as foreign travellers into the unknown.
As prepared as filmmakers are in taking on such a journey, what couldn’t prepare Christina is the expedition she finds herself on where she not only learns about her family’s past but must be confronted with who she is as a filmmaker.