November 27-29, 2015. Inotheatre, Odesa.
What does modern Ukrainian auteur cinema mean? Who are these directors? What worries them, how do they live? Do their films form any kind of fullness or wave?
Ukrainian cinema, which has a really rich tradition, today remains in a semi-marginal position, as if under a layer of dust. Only a few films reach the screens of cinemas, and readers of various media mostly get box office news and production squabbles. Films by young directors live on at festivals or online, and often go unnoticed. But among them there are amazing small films that enter into a lively dialogue both with the current Ukrainian reality and with world cinematographers.
Here you can meet inventive handshakes with American avant-garde cinema of the 70s or with its modern documentaries, with French apologists for pure cinematic expressiveness Jean-Marie Straub and Daniel Huillet, or even with the directors of one of the most interesting cinematographies on the modern map of the world – the Philippine.
At the same time, all these films remain sincere personal experiences of their authors, reflections and statements about what they really care about and are interested in – from the Revolution of Dignity to deeply personal relationships with lovers.
Inoteatre has prepared a program of such a new author’s national cinema. For the first time on the big screen will meet those who today shoot the most interesting and unusual films and at the same time still remain in the penumbra of Ukrainian distribution and criticism. All these films have gone through different paths – from premieres at various festivals to Internet premieres. Can we talk about these paintings as a unity? Can their directors call themselves ‘we’?
From November 27 to 29, films by six young Ukrainian directors – Kateryna Gornostai, Maryna Stepanska, Stanislav Bytiutskyi, Yuriy Hrytsyna, El Parvulesco, Denys Furdin. Special screenings of films by Olexander Balahura, Andriy Zahdanskyi and Ihor Podolchak. As well as lectures, master classes and meetings with filmmakers and special guests.
Program’s trailer:
Program
Holidays, dir. Maryna Stepanska, Ukraine, 2013, 30’
This is a story of young people from nowhere, a story about anatomy of a break-up and finding yourself.
Between Us, dir. Kateryna Gornostai, Ukraine, 2013, 24’
We remember dates and facts, while losing tiny details – like a bouquet of summer wildflowers, tears from onions, winter cold on a bus stop bench. We remember the birthdays of our beloved and how they like their tea, but we forget unexpected touches, floating glances, casual chats. And sometimes – when we are rapidly torn apart from each other – we engrave such moments into our memory.
Away, dir. Kateryna Gornostai, Ukraine, 2015, 11’
‘We will be together until death will tear us apart’ – it is the answer to the question ’till when?’. But when the romance is over, it is time to decide ‘how to continue’. Young couple is looking for the answer.
The Limits of Europe, dir. El Parvulesco, Ukraine, 2014, 15’
In December 2013, at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv, the largest wave of protests in the history of Ukraine known as the Euromaidan took place. While the actual European wonderland was closed for most Ukrainians, the symbolic Europe was created in the center of Kyiv. This is visual research about architecture of barricades of Euromaidan.
Expectation, dir. Denys Furdyn, Ukraine, 2015, 10’
The model of perception and expectation of movement. Consistency and continuity in the temporal dimension of our travel. Passing through stops that capture our cyclic existence.
Vagrich and the Black Square, dir. Andriy Zahdanskyi, USA, Ukraine, 2014, 78’
Vagrich Bahchanyan was the author of thousands of images, collages, dozens of notebooks, hundreds of book and magazine covers, more than a hundred tomes of ‘telephone illustrations’, absurdist plays and numerous aphorisms, such as “We were born to make Kafka come true”. The absurd and surrealistic world of Bahchanyan fills the screen of the film – pictures, animations, performances, theater. This world contains his mystery – and the mystery of the ‘Black Square’ as well.
Varta1, Lviv, Ukraine, dir. Yuriy Hrytsyna, Ukraine, 2015, 63‘
An attempt to reconstruct the atmosphere and the reactions at the end of the Euromaidan, when activists in Lviv started to perform law enforcement functions. The film uses the activist patrols’ walkie-talkie communications to ask questions about the nature of the revolution. What is self-organization? How is democracy created? Who decides a punishment? Where are the center and the periphery of the revolution? Where does it start and where does it end? A brief power vacuum turns into the moment of greatest potentiality, when the beliefs of the past and the strategies for the future are discussed. The film tries to look at the mundane spaces of the city, and to understand whether the historical and revolutionary uncertainty is still there.
Birth of Comedy From the Spirit of Dance, dir. El Parvulesco, Ukraine, 2015, 5’
Lilith’s Community, dir. El Parvulesco, Ukraine, 2015, 60’
According to the medieval religious text Alphabet of ben Sirach, Lilith was the first wife of Adam. Unlike Eve, she refused to obey her husband and considered herself equal to him. Lilith’s Community is a virtual utopian sorority created through artistic revision of history on the basis of positive gender discrimination and rejection of the tradition of male domination.
Lilith’s Community is compiled out of eleven Ukrainian films of 1917–1930 by leaving only the episodes involving women. The editing was done not by creating artificial connections between the episodes, but by superimposing all source films according to the original chronology of episodes in each of them.
Even with such hyperdensity, the film sometimes displays a black screen. It indicates that at this particular moment of the running time none of the eleven films featured a woman.
Both films were accompanied by the director’s commentations.
Life Span of the Object in Frame, dir. Oleksandr Balahura, Ukraine, Italy, 2012, 116’
The time of exposure is the life span of an object in frame. In this regard, no photo is just a two-dimensional graphic composition — it always has a third, temporal di-mension, the temporal depth. A photo is a time carrier, a time vessel. That means — a vessel of memory… But whose memory?… that of the Face or the Thing or the Landscape which are still on the photo?… that of the photographer?… Having chosen photos as the material of the film and memory as the theme, we inevitably find ourselves in a labyrinth of our own and others’ memories, of our own and others’ time. And in seeking for an escape, we become a part of this labyrinth and the material of our own film.
Goodbye, Cinephiles, dir. Stanislav Bytiutskyi, Ukraine, 2014, 67’
This is a story about people in love with cinema, and a country going through its most difficult times. A group of friends, who met sometime ago in a movie theatre, get together to see one of them off to Belgrade. So their journey begins: from personal memories to the remembrance of their country, out of a small dark room to the mystery of Kyiv’s night. Their last stop – the farewell party where reality and cinema once again become a single whole.
Las Meninas, dir. Ihor Podolchak, Ukraine, 2008, 99’
This film is about what the routine of everyday life can do to the human mind and psyche. It also reflects on the importance of the choices we make and how limited these choices are in the first place.
The plot evolves around a family of four. They live in the suburbs, in a strange villa that appears, through a complex game of mirrors, to be more like a piece of installation art than a real house. The main character, who hardly appears on screen, is the son, a man in his thirties. Suffering from asthma and eczema since childhood, he uses his condition to manipulate his parents and his sister.
Thus the existence of the terrorized family turns into an endless ritual of attempting to satisfy his whims, and always on the alert for yet another one of his “health crises”.
LAS MENINAS resembles the scattered pieces of a puzzle. It is up to the viewer to assemble them in order to form his very own picture – something that makes the film itself personal and unique.
Master-classes section
Round table Where are we? Forms of existence and promotion of auteur cinema in Ukraine with the co-founder of the festival of film and urbanism 86 Nadia Parfan, program director of OIFF Anthelme Vidaud, director Maryna Stepanska etc.
Master-class Working with non-actors/types in modern feature films, Maryna Stepanska
Lecture Ukrainian independents, Stanislav Bytiutskyi.
