Seven Thousand Souls (2020) User Reviews

Congratulations!

[rodoljubceskosrbsky · 10/10 · 17 April 2021]

Dear Sanjin:

Congratulations!

We have received the judges' results for the IndieFEST Film Awards 2020 Humanitarian Awards, and we are excited to inform you that you have won:

***************************************

Award of Distinction

Seven Thousand Souls

***************************************

Your production was hand selected by our judges and staff, from the entire pool of entries to the competition throughout 2020, as a film that represents both the spirit of humanitarianism combined with quality filmmaking craft. IndieFEST receives thousands of submissions each year. You can be justifiably proud of this honor!

The judges feel strongly that this year's nominees brought light to many important global topics. In addition to the Grand Prize winner, the judges have included three additional levels of Humanitarian awards so they could honor a broader group of dedicated filmmakers that conveyed so much talent and passion for their subjects.

We honor and thank you for that.

We firmly believe that film can make impactful changes globally and the IndieFEST Humanitarian Awards are designed to give recognition to those illustrious filmmakers whose craft and message enlightens and inspires audiences to make a difference!

We appreciate the extremely important work you are doing to raise awareness and shift global paradigms. We are truly grateful for your talented filmmaking and dedication and we honor YOU, as a filmmaker, for bringing awareness to the critical issues of our time.

Once again, we not only congratulate you, we thank you for your efforts to make a positive difference in our world and we wish you continued success in your career as an award-winning filmmaker.

It is truly our honor to recognize your contribution to the world.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of service to you.

Best wishes,

Rick Prickett Competition Director The IndieFEST Film Awards.

FESTIVALS Reviews

[sanjinmiric · 10/10 · 14 April 2021]

SEVEN THOUSAND SOULS DIRECTED BY Sanjin Miric, MA

International Symbolic Art Film Festival, Saint-Petersburg

REVIEW

It is a very uncomfortable subject to speak on. But speaking about it is a necessity, especially nowadays. World War I aligned with World War II are still very sensitive topics in all countries-participants. Every family has a story to tell, every family has a great grandfather or great grandmother who sacrificed a lot during these devastating events.

That's what makes it so personal.

But no matter how hard and how uncomfortable this subject actually is, it's really important to reanimate those events in our memories every once in a while to make sure those heroes are not forgotten and their noble purposes are captivated with great gratitude.

That is definitely something to thank the Director of this film for.

That being said, let's try to analyze the movie itself. Being a director in contradiction to being a historian means while telling the same exact story to appeal to the feelings of the watcher besides providing dry information. It's just more likely to find a response in the hearts of the young generation who is getting less and less connected to those events.

And it seems to be the goal of "Seven thousand souls".

Narrator puts in the spotlight civil heroes of labor who generally get much less attention than soldiers themselves. All the stories mentioned in the film are very personal, each character has a face, a life, his own heroic path through the war. That raises the level of compassion drastically.

A lot of priceless photographs demonstrated in the film serve the same cause - to raise the compassion, to literally engrave those images in our memories, and some staged scenes to raise that bar even higher.

It ends with the quote by John F. Kennedy: "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names", I'd say, that sums up the movie perfectly.

-Alexandra Dahnovskaya.

*************************************

London International Monthly Film Festival - London

SEVEN THOUSAND SOULS

''Seven Thousand Souls'' is the outstanding and extraordinary documentary by Sanjin Miric. This piece of artistic history is about the story of the lost 7,100 men that never left the Austro-Hungarian training camps, after the Great War. Miric succeeds to deliver an all around great film that combines story telling and education, emotionally drained and with a great message.

Firstly it has a very important premise, this multi awarded documentary was also funded by the Serbian Ministry of Culture which clarifies the historical accuracy of the events. The production design quality excellence is obvious despite the suprisngly low budget of 40,000 EUROS, considering there is a huge plethora of flashbacks, costumes, special vfx and locations.

The directing is energetic, brilliantly holding a great pace throughout the film without overstaying itself. There is no dialogue on the representative historical flashbacks but you can feel the scenes. The beautiful script is accompanied with sweet visuals, well done cinematography and color grading.

There is nothing negative to say about this film, everything is rightly done with only one questionable choice, the final quote by J. F Kennedy that suggests to forgive but never forget. This quote captures the rapid Balkan spirit that is always war hungry yet we would love to see a quote from Serbian or orthodox literature and philosophy.

However, this is secondary as we witness an amazing dramatic war piece. We cannot wait to see what is next for the director Sanjin Miric.

LIMFF Team.