“Lost in the Sands of Time...”: The Story of Pavlo Tsibere

June 7, 2011. Transcarpathian Regional State Television and Radio Company. The documentary feature film “Lost in the Sands of Time...” tells the story of Pavlo Tsibere—a native of the Transcarpathian village of Zaluzhzhya, a lawyer, and a political and civic activist in Czechoslovakia. Tsibere joined the anti-fascist movement, helped his fellow villagers, and worked to secure the release of Transcarpathians from Soviet concentration camps.

The film highlights the complex chapters of Pavlo Tsibere’s life: persecution during the Hungarian occupation of Transcarpathia, his arrest by Soviet state security agencies in 1947, his imprisonment, and his release and rehabilitation in 1956. The filmmakers explore why this figure and his contribution to the lives of his fellow Transcarpathians have remained largely unknown. Filming took place at Uzhhorod Castle, the Transcarpathian Museum of Folk Architecture and Life, on the streets of Uzhhorod, in the village of Zaluzhzhia, and at a quarry. The film features black-and-white newsreels from the Czechoslovak Republic dating from the 1920s and 1930s.

The film was produced by Dmytro Keshelya, directed by Nataliia Tron-Gedesh, and shot by cinematographers Volodymyr Duda and Yurii Kupar.