With all eyes of the world focused on Ukraine’s events unfolding in the country’s east, the nation’s moviemaking community presented an almanac “Ukraine Voices” – a package of 10 documentaries – during GoEast festival of Central and Eastern European Film.
The festival that took place in Germany’s Wiesbaden in mid-April brought together a number of filmmakers from Poland, Hungary, Germany, Russia and Ukraine.
All the films in the almanac were made during the workshops organized by Indie Lab project initiated by Ukraine’s filmmaker Dmytro Tiazhlov and Ella Shtyka, project’s coordinator. Ukraine’s tense political situation came of a great help for the filmmakers.
“When Ukraine has any problems, say, gas issue or revolution, Ukraine’s films quickly make it to international focus. So the revolution was good for us,” Shtyka says.
The Indie Lab participants were working on their movies for two months and finished them by the end of December.
Even though the almanac didn’t make it to the festival’s competition, it was presented to the German public. One of the films, “Love…Share,” made it to the opening ceremony of the festival. It features a love story of Ukrainian activist and a riot police officer that takes place during the EuroMaidan protest.
“Anastasiya Khonyakina, the director of the “Love…Share” movie had different idea, but the revolutionary events inspired her to film such a story,” Shtyka says.
Some of the other films also reflected on the four-month EuroMaidan protests and Crimea annexation. Even “In the Fields,” a documentary about Ukraine’s Askania Nova nature reserve, includes a scene where the main character, an animal protectionist, marches on Independence Square in Kyiv, where the protest took place.
For most of the filmmakers Indie Lab was a debut.
“Exarch,” another documentary made by Kyiv-based filmmaker Nadia Parfan, shows the lifeline of an Orthodox bishop, who is unable to bear the hypocrisy of his church and becomes a LGBT activist-priest.
Shtyka hopes that Ukrainian audience also gets a chance to watch the almanac. Some of the films were already screened in Kyiv during American Independent Film Festival in December of 2013 and DocuDays 2014 Festival in late March.
“We’re not waiting for Cannes Festival to present the films, so we take every possibility and also we have long friendly relations with GoEast organizers,” Shtyka explained the choice of the festival.
She says she wants the quality of Ukrainian documentary movies to be improved.
“I wish the audience to watch our documentaries not only because they are Ukraine-made, but because they are good-quality movies,” Shtyka says.
GoEast organizers have called for the movie community to provide films for free to all the film festivals in Ukraine, and charge Ukrainian festivals with no screening fees this year.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]
