The past year has been a successful one for the Ukrainian movie industry.
The country’s achievements may not seem so impressive compared to movie-making powerhouses like the United States, where, according to the Motion Picture Association of America, around 600 movies are released each year. By contrast, Ukraine releases around a dozen yearly, and the biggest budgets vary between $5 million and $8 million.
But in relative terms, Ukraine’s film industry had some big successes in 2015. Here are the most noticeable of them:
The success of “The Tribe”
The Hollywood Reporter placed the Ukrainian sign language drama “The Tribe” number one in its Top 10 list of films of 2015. The movie was released in 2014, but its trail of festival successes continued through 2015. It was shown at 30 festivals and became the first-ever Ukrainian movie to be shown in the United States in 50 regular commercial theaters, rather than at festivals.
“The Tribe” is the first feature film by Ukrainian director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy. It is about love, crime and hate in a Ukrainian boarding school for deaf teenagers.
Despite its recognition at film festivals, “The Tribe” wasn’t commercially successful. Its box office takings came to just $150,564, according to Box Office Mojo – covering just over a tenth of its budget of $1.3 million.
Still, the movie earned some impressive reviews from critics.
“Debuting director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy uses all his self-imposed restrictions (no dialogue, very long takes) to great advantage in this stunning study of societal degradation,” wrote HR reporter Todd McCarthy.
Read Kyiv Post story on “The Tribe” here.
“Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom”
The Netflix documentary “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” about the EuroMaidan Revolution in the winter of 2013 and 2014, was short-listed for the 2016 Academy Awards.
The documentary was co-produced by Ukraine, the United States and the United Kingdom.
To pick the material for his film, the American director of Russian origin, Evgeny Afineevsky, watched 1,500 hours of EuroMaidan footage shot by Radio Liberty, Ukrainian television’s Channel 5, Espresso TV, and more than 20 Ukrainian streamers and cameramen.
Since its release on Netflix in October, the movie has had more than two million views. On movie ratings site Rotten Tomatoes it won a rare 100 percent rating from critics.
It’s also the first movie produced with the participation of Ukraine ever to be shortlisted for the Oscars.
However, its chances to win are slim. According to the latest odds given by U.S bookmakers and published by Variety magazine, “Winter on Fire” is a dark horse in the Oscar’s race.
“Modern technology may not yet be able to capture the smell of gunpowder and tear gas, but Afineevsky takes the viewer closer to the action than might have seemed possible,” wrote the New York Times film critic A.O. Scott.
Read the Kyiv Post story on “Winter on Fire” here.
“Unbroken” biopic
“Unbroken,” screened in Russia as “The Battle for Sevastopol,” is a $5 million biopic about the exploits of Ukrainian woman sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko in the Second World War. The movie was co-produced by Ukraine and Russia, and co-financed by state agencies in both countries.
Russian actress Yulia Peresild played the role of Pavlichenko. The original title, “The Battle for Sevastopol,” was changed to “Unbroken” for the movie’s domestic run in Ukraine to avoid associations with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014. It is the most expensive movie ever made in Ukraine, and raked in $8 million at the box office.
Apart from Ukraine and Russia, the movie was distributed in China and South Korea. Distribution rights were also sold to Thailand and Japan.
Read the Kyiv Post story on the “Unbroken” here.
“The Russian Woodpecker”
Yahoo Movies put this rather strange documentary at 38th place in their Top 40 best movies of the year rating. The movie, co-produced by the U.S., U.K. and Ukraine, follows Ukrainian artist Fedor Alexandrovich as he probes a conspiracy theory about the real cause of the nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear plant in 1986.
The film won five awards at film festivals, including the grand jury prize of the Sundance Film Festival for “innovative filmmaking on a bold scale.”
Read the Kyiv Post story on “Russian Woodpecker” here.
Kyiv Post staff writer Veronika Melkozerova can be reached at [email protected]
