"When I was a child, the world was divided in two distincts blocks, the East (evil) and the West (good). It was simple ...

On the other side of the Iron Curtain (which I truly imagined as a tall iron wall, thousands of miles high), there was no one to save, not a single good soul ... Since then, we have learned some things and moderated our position. We ended up making a distinction between the tormentors and the victims and we wonder incredulously how all these people managed to get through such dark years, how they managed to merely survive.

Testimonies abound nowadays, be they studies, denounciations or thesis topics ...

And revelations have yet to emerge about those times form this Century's identity ...

Commentators are all stunned over the incredible human capacity for survival, adaptation and resistance.

When immersed in a vessel, man will swim. What is this indomitable breath, this small spark in the far reaches of the Soul ...?

It is the instinct of life, ever-present, primordial, but which no one has ever succeeded in dissecting or defining.

There is but a single step between the instincts of life and freedom: that of thought.

East-West is the movement, the breath of life, from one person to another, from one thought to another, from one country to another. Like a torch that is passed on, everyone taking care that it isn't put out but ready to give it up as long as they know that it burns in someone else's heart."

To read an interview with the director, click here.

Regis Wargnier

Nominated for an Academy Award®
for Best Foreign Language Film
Soundtrack available at Sony Classical