Ukraine’s EuroMaidan Revolution attracted not only worldwide media attention, but also inspired filmmakers to capture the historical events in documentaries.
A documentary called “The Last
Revolution: Ukraine’s EuroMaidan” is being produced by a group of journalists
of Ukrainian diaspora in North America. The filmmaking will take at least seven
more months and is scheduled to be released in early 2015. The trailer is
available at YouTube.
“The Last Revolution” is being
made by six American-born journalists with Ukrainian roots who have been in
Kyiv since the beginning of the anti-government rallies last fall.
Seamus Kelleher, the film’s
associate producer, says that the lack of accurate and reliable information
about the EuroMaidan protests motivated his team to produce a documentary.
“We felt there was a need for
an English-language news source for events taking place in Ukraine because, at
that time, Western media was not really covering the EuroMaidan,” he said.
“The Last Revolution” makers
shot hundreds of hours of scenes featuring protesters at Independence Square
and in other hot spots of the protest in Kyiv. The reporters interviewed
ordinary people as well as political and religious leaders who explained their
motivations for joining the protest. According to Kelleher, people used to deny
that politics had brought them to the streets.
“People emphasized human
rights injustices rather than politics [as their motivation to join rallies],”
says Kelleher.
Kelleher and his team were
eager to show the other side of the coin too – the motivation of the so-called
AntiMaidan rallies that were organized by the pro-government Party of Regions.
However, the filmmakers ran into difficulty as most of the Yanukovych
supporters refused to talk.
The documentary is expected to
run for about 100 minutes, but it is still in production because of the ongoing
nature of the protests and tense political situation in Crimea these days. The
budget of the movie is over $40,000, the money that the producers don’t have
yet.
“Currently we are applying for
grants and have launched a fundraising campaign [to finance film’s production].
We are also accepting private donations,” Kelleher said.
The journalists plan to finish
the film by fall, while some parts of the future documentary have been already
presented in Cleveland and Chicago. The filmmakers plan to take the documentary
to various national and international film festivals.
“Our aim is to give an
international voice to the Ukrainians who stood at Maidan with hopes for better
tomorrow,” Kelleher said. “This is a story that needs to be told.”
Kelleher’s group is one of
several teams working on documentary movies about EuroMaidan.
Kyiv amateur filmmakers
Babylon’13 have been producing series of short videos about Ukraine’s
revolution. Dozens three to five minutes long videos have been posted to
Babylon’13 YouTube channel.
Social art group Bimba
Production is another local documentary filmmaking project that has been
covering EuroMaidan for more than a month now. Their videos are available at
BimbaUa YouTube channel.
Polish Publicystyka TV station
filmed a documentary about the use of force by Ukraine’s Berkut riot police
against peaceful protesters and about the circumstances of the assault and
kidnapping of Ukrainian prominent activists Tetyana Chornovol and Ihor
Lutsenko. The movie is in Polish and is called “Po prostu – Wstrzasajacerelacje
z Ukrainy” (Simply – Shocking relations with Ukraine). It is available on
YouTube.
Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached
at [email protected]
