You're reading: A Ukrainian film director brings silver from Locarno

Ukraine's short film director has returned from Locarno film festival, and he's not alone. He is accompanied by a silver leopard, a prestigious trophy in the film world.

“This is the second prize of course, but it
doesn’t make me less happy,” said Slaboshpytsky as he arrived
home late on Aug. 12. He said he was still overwhelmed with
emotions.

To Switzerland, Slaboshpytsky took his movie
called Nuclear Waste, which is just 24 minutes long. It’s about life
in the Chornobyl exclusion zone, a dead area around the Chornobyl
nuclear plant that exploded in April 1986.

Locarno is one of world’s most famous and
high-key film festivals along with the Geman Berlinale, and film
festivals in Cannes and Venice.

The movie portrays ordinary life in the
30-kilometer Chornobyl zone, ticking along much the same way as it
does anywhere else in the world.

The film has no staged scenes, but is still very
expressive and full of energy, critics noted. “The film script
took less than a page, but the energy of it could be felt after each
word,” Volodymr Voytenko, a Ukrainian film critic and director
told the Kyiv Post earlier.

Apart form the trophy, the film brought
Slaboshpytsky a 5,000 Swiss Francs, and new friends among his cinema
idols.

The modest Ukrainian winner said he had no idea
why his film was picked out. Mark People, head of the jury, sat
next to Slaboshpytsky at a dinner party one evening. He said the
jury could not figure out whether

Nuclear Waste was a documentary or a feature
movie with professional actors. This is what is was picked for,
Slaboshpytsky says.

The film is not going to be shown in Ukraine
until this year’s Molodist film festival, which will take place in
Kyiv on Oct. 20-28.

“This was the first time I have seen my
film on such a big screen and I was so worried, watching people
walking in and out and wondering why they leave,” Slaboshpytsky
says about his Locarno festival experience. “But when the film
ended the cinema hall exploded and I felt that warmth of the
audience and the excitement I always wanted to feel.”

Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko can be reached at [email protected].