See Ukraine

This program is a pilot edition of the project named «See Ukraine: Docudays UA on tour». It is travelling festival of the documentaries about Ukraine, which allows to people worldwide to explore the country through cinema and photography, and also to communicate with Ukrainian filmmakers, photographers, civil activists and journalists, who will try to provide additional contexts to the events shown in the films, and tell us about what happens in the country nowadays.

MUSEON project is a wandering cinema theater based in Israel. It aims to refresh forgotten masterpieces and present newest cinematic trends in various genres: cine-documents, cinemusic, movies of young & student filmmakers, world film festivals, secret screenings, lectures, workshops, discussions and cine-parties.

The films will be screened with English subtitles. The workshop and Q&A will be translated to Hebrew.

Facebook: www.facebook.com

Olena Ivanchuk
Second Secretary,
Embassy of Ukraine to the State of Israel

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PROGRAM:

November 26, 2015 / Ha-Teiva
Address: Hatsrot Yaffo, Tel-Aviv-Jaffa
19:00 The Eleventh Year
(director Dziga Vertov, USSR, 1928, 52 min)
New soundtrack by composer Anton Baibakov (Ukraine)
20:30 All Things Ablaze (directors Oleksandr Techynsky, Aleksey Solodunov, Dmitry Stoykov, Ukraine, 2014, 82 min)
22:00 Living Fire (director Ostap Kostyuk, Ukraine, 2014, 77 min)
Q&A with Ostap Kostyuk

November 27, 2015 / Ha-Teiva
Address: Hatsrot Yaffo, Tel-Aviv-Jaffa
19:00 Crepuscule (director Valentyn Vasyanovych, Ukraine, 2014, 61 min)
Sirs and Misters (director Oleksandr Techynsky, Ukraine, 2013, 35 min)
Q&A with Oleksandr Techynsky
This screening is Supported by Genesis Philanthropy Group

21:00 Cornered (director Dmytro Tiazhlov, Ukraine, 2013, 25min)
The Doctor Leaves Last (director Svitlana Shymko, Ukraine, 2014, 26 min)
Positive (director Polina Kelm, Ukraine, 2013, 28 min)
Café Voyage (director Roman Bondarchuk, Ukraine, 2013, 12 min)

November 28, 2015 / Birobidzhan studio
Address: Hagdud Haivri 5, Tel-Aviv-Jaffa
19:00 The Coal Miner’s Day (director Gaël Mocaër, France, 2013, 80 min)
21:00 Life Span of the Object in Frame
(director Aleksandr Balagura, Ukraine-Italy, 2012, 111 min)

ABOUT FILMS:

THE ELEVENTH YEAR
director Dziga Vertov
Ukrainian SSR, 1928, 42 min
Music by Anton Baibakov

The Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre, together with Docudays UA, presents the Israeli premiere of the restored film The Eleventh Year by Dziga Vertov (1928, Ukrainian SSR) with music by Anton Baibakov.

The Eleventh Year is a documentary based on a Soviet newsreel shot during the 1920s, telling the story of the construction of socialism. It is the first film filmed by Vertov in Ukraine. The eleventh year of Soviet rule was a period of industrialization, as well as the building of DniproHES and other giants of Soviet industry. The director intentionally focused on this non-anniversary year to avoid holiday shows and official government celebrations. The camera is focused only on the most important thing, which is work – the tireless construction of a new socialist reality in Ukraine. On February 28, 1928, Dziga Vertov said that The Eleventh Year was written directly by the movie camera, without the mediation of a script, and that the camera had replaced the writer’s pen. This allowed Vertov to claim that he had invented a pure cinematic language (deeply socialist at the same time), in which the camera deals directly with the raw material of the facts.

Anton Baibakov was born in 1983. He’s been composing since 1998. In 2005 Anton graduated from Ivan Karpenko-Kary National Theatre, Cinema and Television University in Kyiv. He worked as sound director on TV, radio and film post-production, sound designer and composer for feature, documentary films and commercials. As independent musician he constantly works with well-known Ukrainian bands (DakhaBrakha, Katya Chilly). In 2011 he got two prizes for best soundtracks at Ibiza International Film Festival, Spain (I’m not Telling by Igor Kopylov) and Open Night Film Festival, Ukraine (Hoydalka by Serhiy Myronenko).

Dziga Vertov (1896—1954) was a Soviet pioneer of avant-garde documentary film, a newsreel director and cinema theorist. His filming practices and Cine-Eye theory were influential for future generations of documentary moviemakers. Fired from Sovkino, Vertov moved to Ukraine at the request of the Odessa Film Studio. In Ukraine he shot three films: The Eleventh Year (1928), Man with a Movie Camera (1929), which is often named among the best movies ever, and Enthusiasm (1930), which was the first Ukrainian sound film and the first of Vertov’s film with a soundtrack. The distribution of these three films was not very successful, yet it is impossible to overestimate their influence on the later development of documentary filmmaking.

Filmography (selected):
Cine-Eye (1924), Cine-Truth (1925), A Sixth of the World (1926), The Eleventh Year (1928), Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Enthusiasm (The Donbas Symphony) (1930), Three Songs About Lenin (1934), Lullaby (1937)

ALL THINGS ABLAZE
directors Oleksandr Techynsky, Aleksey Solodunov, Dmitry Stoykov
Ukraine, 2014, 82 min

This film is not about the revolution that changed Ukraine last winter. Not exactly. Instead it shows a universal pattern of this particular kind of uprisings – those that end with bloodshed. At first, the noble endeavor for freedom collides with the dark force of the repressive rulers. Then eventually, after much confusion and chaos, the righteous anger of people changes to pure outrage. And when the first casualties on both sides fall, no matter how black and white it seems from outside, the edge between good and bad blurs when one looks from the epicenter of a battle. And finally, all things are ablaze.

Oleksandr Techynsky, Aleksey Solodunov and Dmitry Stoykov are lifelong friends and colleagues who have worked as photo reporters for many years. When they switched to filmmaking in order to be able to tell a bigger story, their photojournalistic approach became something that defines their cinematographic style. All Things Ablaze is their first feature length documentary. Oleksandr has also directed a short documentary Sirs and Misters, together with Aleksey as DP.

LIVING FIRE
director Ostap Kostyuk
Ukraine, 2014, 77 min

An artistic documentary about the life of shepherds in the Ukrainian Carpathians, and the fate of traditional crafts against the background of modern changes. About a day-to-job work without weekends, or any right to show weakness. About the harmonious world we have lost in the search for comfort, and about the childhood we leave behind when we put on the roles of adults.

Ostap Kostyuk is a director, actor, and musician. He was born in 1979 in Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk region. Graduated from the History department of the Ivan Franko National University in Lviv and the acting studio of Les Kurbas Theater. Worked as an actor at Les Kurbas Lviv Academic Theater and at the Song Workshop Artistic Center. He is also a musician and the co-author of such music projects as BAI. Hutsul Mystery, Banda Arkan,Tatosh Banda and Hych Orkestr.

Filmography:
Manu and Cabbage (2011)

CREPUSCULE
director Valentyn Vasyanovych
Ukraine, 2014, 61 min

Maria, aged 82, and her sick son Sashko live out their days in a remote province. Sashko went blind because of serious illness. He’s afraid that his mother is dying, but Maria desperately clings to life as she realizes that no one will take care of her son. They may seem to be acting irrationally, but they are heroically unwilling to surrender. Maria buys a calf, Sashko starts to build a tractor, groping his way in the darkness…

Valentyn Vasyanovych was born in 1971 in Zhytomyr, where he graduated from the local music school. Valentin has diplomas as a cameraman and documentary film director from the Karpenko-Kary National University of Theatre, Cinema and TV. In 2006–7 he studied at the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing in Poland. Currently Vasyanovych is working on both documentaries and fiction films.

Filmography:
Keepsake (1998), Old People (2001) Against the Sun (2004), Line (2006) Lullaby for Flute and Drum (2007), Business as Usual (2012), Kredens (2013).

SIRS AND MISTERS
director Oleksandr Techynsky
Ukraine, 2013, 35 min

A museum guide, a military man, a bank clerk, an aircraft mechanic and other desperate Ukrainian men from all over the country get together every fall to work as porters during the pilgrimage of Hasidim to the town of Uman. Within four days, tens of thousands of Hasidim flock together to this tiny town – in a celebrating mood, singing, dancing and… bringing enormous amounts of baggage with them. Throughout these four days, the local porters sleep no more than three hours a night in handmade tents along the side of the road, while they spend the rest of the time carrying tons of loads to earn more than twice their usual monthly salaries. On their way, they have to reach mutual understanding with their almost ‘alien’ clients, as well as with each other. However, it seems that no burdens can suppress their optimism and humor. Finally, they are sure – “The Lord God knows what he's doing”.

Oleksandr Techynsky was born in 1979 in Dnipropetrovsk. He spent childhood in the Sakha Republic, Yakutia. In 1999 he graduated from Dnipropetrovsk Medical College, then he worked as a medical assistant in a psychiatric emergency team. In 2001 he left medicine and started to work as a freelance photographer. Since 2005 has worked at the Kommersant-Ukraine daily newspaper. In 2010 he left Kommersant and focused on his own documentary projects, including photography and film. Sirs and Misters is his first film.

CORNERED
director Dmytro Tiazhlov
Ukraine, 2013, 25min

"Cornered" explores the confrontation between the residents of the village of Panasivka and local authorities. We follow one of the residents, Zoya Shulha, who has decided to make information request to the government to see why the bus route to the village was cancelled. Will the village see a regular bus again? How one is to convince himself and his fellow villagers who have long lost any hope and faith to stand up for their common rights?

Dmytro Tiazhlov graduated Kyiv State Institute of Theatrical Art and TV. Tiazhlov’s aesthetic falls squarely in the "direct cinema" tradition of documentary filmmaking, which emphasizes continued filming, as unobtrusively as possible, of human conversation and the routines of everyday life, with no music, no voice-over narration, and no overt attempt to interpret or explain the events unfolding before the camera. Dmytro is the Curator of the DOP course, at Kyiv State University of Cinema and TV. He’s writing work on theory of shooting documentary by director and cameraman in one person for a degree in art science, working on several documentary film projects.

Filmography:
Austerlitz 2005-1805 (2006), Important man (2007), The difficult one (2007), I’m a monument to myself (2010), Via Regia-Ukraine (2011), Music box (2013), Post Maidan (2015), Live Power (2015)

THE DOCTOR LEAVES LAST
director Svitlana Shymko
Ukraine, 2014, 26 min

Tanya, a volunteer doctor, was in the front-ranks during the bloodiest days of Maidan. After the ceasefire, she remains in Kyiv in order to help the injured. In the meantime, the undeclared war with the Russian Federation breaks out in the east of Ukraine. Tanya has to go to the front again.

Svitlana Shymko is an independent Ukrainian filmmaker. She graduated from the DocNomads international master’s program in documentary filmmaking. She is involved in developing political, social and feminist issues in documentary.

POSITIVE
director Polina Kelm
Ukraine, 2013, 28 min

Lena, Taya and Tamara live in Kyiv and work at local cinema studios. They got used to editing other people’s movies by working with positive film strips only, and they are afraid of computers. Their world is a world of lost and dusty tapes on the floors. They breed cats, watch the Oscar ceremonies every year and secretly dream of working on movies like Avatar. All their lives they have remained on the backstage of the cinema world, on the other side of the screen. And now it’s their time to come onto the stage…

Polina Kelm was born in 1979 in Kyiv; she graduated from the Kyiv National Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and TV University as a film director in 2010. She also works as a screenplay writer and editor. Her films have been submitted to over ten international festivals since 2005.

Filmography:
La Belochka (2005), The House (2006), FRO (2008), The Continuity (2010), One Step To The Holiday / anthology Beyond The EURO (2012)

CAFE VOYAGE
director Roman Bondarchuk
Ukraine, 2013, 12 min

Vova is a guard at a private fishing enterprise. In the Soviet days and the early 1990s he was the head of a collective fishing farm. Nowadays he’s at the roadside of life, watching things go by from his vantage point – the abandoned Voyage cafe. His tales and stories make up a kaleidoscopic image of present-day Ukraine.

Roman Bondarchuk is a graduate of the Karpenko-Kary Theater, Film and Television University (Yuriy Illienko’s workshop). His graduation film Taxi Driver won the White Elephant prize from the Russian Film Critic Guild and the Russian Producers’ Grand Prix at the Kinoshok Open film festival for the CIS, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, as well as the prize for ‘Boldness and Poetics’ at the 4th KINOTEATR.DOC festival.

Filmography (selected):
Mannequins (2001), Mykola and the German (2005), Taxi Driver (2005), Polina (2011), Romani Dream (2012), Café Voyage (2013)
The Coal Miner’s Day
director Gaël Mocaër
France, 2013, 80 min

A carnival-like ceremony in an obsolete and entertaining Soviet style takes place in the Ukrainian countryside. Then, all of a sudden, into the mine explodes the violence of a prison world where everyone finds refuge behind a license, as a talisman that enables them to survive the chaos. The camera takes a dive into the bowels of the earth that devours its own children; at the same time she feeds, warms them up, enlightens them all. This is a skimpy, sweltering, airless, lightless, spaceless world, invaded with metal, dust, crawling and bowed men. A party and a few balloons make a break in these men’s life. Do they really breathe better outside?

Gaël Mocaër was born in 1972 in Bayonne, France. He grew up between France and Africa. He has worked in Madagascar, Lebanon, Iraq and Ukraine as a documentary filmmaker and war reporter. In 2009 he went to Ukraine with the photographer Yuri Bilak and started shooting the film The Coal Miner's Day, finished in 2013. Since 2010 he has been the chief director of the documentary series Kindia about Guinea.

Filmography:
Antisocial (2001), Madagascar, Seven Months of Chaos (2002), India Day (2003), No Popcorn on the floor (2009), Libya: The Long March to Freedom (2011), The Coal Miner’s Day (2013), Kindia 2015 (2013)
LIFE SPAN OF THE OBJECT IN FRAME
director Aleksandr Balagura
Ukraine-Italy, 2012, 111 min

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 the third, temporal dimension, the temporal depth. A photo is a time carrier, a time vessel. That means – a vessel of memory… But whose memory?.. Of the Face or the Thing or the Landscape which are still on the photo?.. 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 the escape, we become a part of this labyrinth and the material of our own film.

Oleksandr Balahura was born in 1960 in Luboml. He graduated from the Faculty of History of Kyiv State University. From 1989 to 1998, he worked as a director at the Ukrainian Studio of Chronicle and Documentary Films and TV Projects. He has been living in Italy since 1998 with his wife and three children. He is an independent director who has made over 20 documentaries, which have been shown at international film festivals in Kyiv, Paris, Toronto, Florence, Tagliacozzo, etc. His first independent work, To Our Brothers and Sisters (1990) won the Grand Prix at the Florence festival.

Filmography:
To Our Brothers and Sisters (1990), Wings of a Butterfly (2008), Life Span of the Object in Frame (2012)