You're reading: British film critic in Kyiv slams Hollywood

When Hannah McGill, a prominent British film critic, first came to Kyiv several weeks ago, she knew nothing about Ukrainian cinematography, but found Kyiv a very photogenic city.

“Movies about the Cold War times could be filmed here,” she said after taking in the mishmash of Kyiv’s Soviet and neo-Baroque architecture.

McGill, 34, who used to be an artistic director of Edinburgh International Film Festival for four years until 2010, came to Kyiv as a special guest for 11th annual New British Film Festival, that was held on Nov. 11-16. Presenting the latest British hits, she slammed Hollywood and encouraged independent film makers in Kyiv to explore their own voice and style.

After more than a decade of working as a film critic, she blames Hollywood for spreading American “propaganda” and churning out unrealistic stories, which makes art house and experimental films hard to watch in comparison.

"Hollywood is a huge dominant machine that can swamp the market with its product. The idea that only blockbusters can be entertaining has to be destroyed," she said during a meeting with film aficionados in Kyiv.

McGill touted “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” a British drama about a distraught mother who tries to cope with the fact that her son is a murderer, as one of the best films she has seen this year.

Starring Tilda Swinton, the film won the BFI London Film Festival earlier this year. Tickets to the screening in Kyiv were sold out long before the premier.

Asked about what other films she would recommend watching, McGill apologetically admits that she needs to check her own reviews for that. “Working as an artistic director of the festival, I had to watch a huge number of films. My limit was five movies per day,” she recalls.

After stepping down from the film festival’s post, she returned to critical work, a role she filled for the Glasgow Herald, Scotsman, Guardian and other newspapers before. She has also vacated more time for her own creative writing.

Returning to being a film critic again, McGill noticed many changes in the industry.

“When I began working, there was a job called a film critic and you were paid for it. Now people can search for opinions online and write blogs themselves," she said. There is no a need for university-educated film critics any more, she sighs.

"If I knew that things were going to be like that, I would have probably learnt to do something else,” McGill says, chuckling.

To her content, the cinema did not change drastically though.

“The one thing that I found very interesting is that the death of cinema has been predicted all the time, probably since the beginning of television. But people still very much want to get together and watch films on big screen,” she said smiling.