March 14, 2014
The 11th International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Docudays UA will be held in Kyiv
On March 21–28 the 11th International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Docudays UA welcomes the viewers to see world best documentaries at its festival locations – at the Cinema House (Saksahanskoho str., 6), Kinopanorama Cinema (Shota Rustaveli str. 19), and Kyiv Cinema (Velyka Vasylkivska str., 19).
This year Docudays UA decided to go without any Opening film, because our attention is entirely consumed by ongoing changes in this country. We called upon directors who filmed Ukrainian protests and asked them to contribute their best footages. Those episodes of future films about Euromaidan made up the revolutionary kaleidoscope requiring no comments. Opening film will be the chronicle of Ukrainian protest:
Euromaidan. Rough Cut.
Three months of the revolution. From indignant protest to people’s unity. From a pan on one’s head to bats and bullet-proof vests. From the euphoria of triumph to bemoaning the dead of the Heaven’s Hundred. The revolution as the explosion of the awakened dignity, as the ecstasy of freedom, as the pain of knowing the price, as the birth of Ukraine’s new history. Live with us through those three months of struggle, feel and see the revolution through our eyes.
Hosts of the opening ceremony will be known Ukrainian journalists, Natalya Gumenyuk and Andriy Saychuk.
This year’s opening ceremony will also present a special guest – Mariana Sadovska, an actress and singer whom Docudays UA has invited from Cologne.
“Sometimes a musician has such an inborn desire to communicate that her message naturally becomes universal: it doesn’t matter whether she is singing soul or bel canto or folk. Such was the case with the Ukrainian singer Mariana Sadovska.… The responsibilities, protocol, and tradition of whatever style she is working in just vanish; she replaces them with pure vitality.” (Ben Ratliff ,The New York Times)
The topic of the 11th Docudays UA is Ideoruption. This means corruption that long time ago has become ideology and with time being has become part of Ukrainian mentality. This year topic is an attempt to grasp the scale of corruption in Ukraine and abroad, and show how solidarity amongst ordinary people can oppose ideoruption. Look for your way of fighting ideoruption together with characters of Putin’s Games by Alexander Gentelev, Coach Zoran and His African Tigers by Sam Benstead, Master of the Universe by Marc Bauder, and our guests who will tell how to identify ideoruption, its scope, how to fight it, how to punish the guilty and return the stolen to the state.
Entrance to all screenings at Cinema House, Kinopanorama, and Kyiv Cinema is FREE.
Traditionally, the festival presents competition and non-competition programs. Competition comprises three lines: DOCU/LIFE, DOCU/RIGHT and DOCU/SHORT, each of which is assessed by its own jury. Students jury and the audience will also choose their favorites.
Non-competition program this year amalgamates prize winning films from world festivals, films on peaceful protests, best film selections and much more. This year’s special programs are DOCU/BEST, DOCU/UKRAINE, HOT DOCS presents, DOCU/RIOT, DOCU/ART, ARTDOCFEST presents, and Andriy Zagdanskiy’s Retrospective.
This year’s selection of DOCU/UKRAINE program is an opportunity to get acquainted with artists of various generations, styles, genres, and tastes. From debutants with still imperfect skills yet already with their own artistic vision ―to favorites of numerous festivals ―to almost classics of domestic documentary filmmaking.
Our DOCU/RIOT selection is for searching for new recipes or simple answers to complex questions. Not for learning from mistakes made by others. The only thing we can learn for sure is that we’re not alone. Looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, we’ve got a chance to see it if people looking for it, too, turn on their flashlights there.
The DOCU/ART selection for this year presents vibrant uncompromising movies where a human produces acts of will instead of likes. Art War by Marco Wilms is the best representation of such a slogan. Pussy versus Putin by an anonymous tandem Gogol's Wives Productions awarded in Amsterdam as the Best Mid-Length Documentary is a brilliant archive chronicle of the Pussy Riot’s story. From Iran, a Separation by Azadeh Mousavi and Kourosh Ataei – studies the example of unprecedented success of The Separation of Nader from Simin by Asghar Farhadi that was awarded with prizes of best international festivals followed by an Oscar.
The special program DOCU/BEST offers a selection of award-winning movies from various international festivals. The Special Need – the film by Carlo Zoratti about an autistic 28 year old Enea dreaming about true love – was awarded with a Golden Dove in Leipzig. Sofia’s Last Ambulance – the film about heroic ambulance brigade – the best film at the IFF in Karlovy Vary and at the International Critics' Week of Cannes Film Festival. A World Not Ours by Mahdi Fleifel – the film about Palestinian refugee camp in Iran won a Silver Apricot at the IFF in Yerevan. Nepal Forever by Alyona Polunina came to us accompanied by festival favorites, for it has gained the prize in Cinema XXI at the IFF in Rome. And the leader of the BEST program – The Act of Killing by Joshua Oppenheimer – about former Indonesian secret service and gang members which in the 1960s participated in genocide against their fellow citizens in the name of communism.
Three films from Canadian international documentary film festival HOT DOCS do not pretend to be a revolution in life or cinematography. Nevertheless, they add new options to our mind compass. Films of this selection tell us that things that we deem complicated or intolerable in our lives are a routine for others.
The ARTDOCFEST program presents three films. In the Danish “Ballroom Dancer”, a spectacular film made for theaters and built under the laws of grand cinematography, a viewer can see a person in critical period of his life. Lithuanian “Igrushki” in a strictly artistic manner demonstrates the mutations possible with human beings under conditions of police state. The Czech-Russian “Theory of Aeducation and Uliyana” focuses on how totalitarian reality of a Christian orphanage tries to but still is unable to break a little yet proud and freedom-loving creature.
SPECIAL SCREENINGS AND EVENTS
Do not miss our very special events!
After the screenings of Ideoruption program there will be discussions with experts and viewers:
- discussion on corruption in Ukrainian football with Yuriy Nikolov, coordinator of Nashi Groshi project. Based on materials of Coach Zoran and His African Tigers (UK, 2013, 76’)
- discussion “Corruption in banking system” with experts of Anticorruption Action Centre, based on Master of the Universe by Marc Bauder (Germany, 2013, 99’)
- discussion “Corruption among top officials in Ukraine and Russia: the way to return the stolen to the state” with the CEO of the Anticorruption Action Centre, Daria Kalenyuk; based on Putin’s Games by Alexander Gentelev (Israel, Austria, 2013, 90’).
Discussion “Procedure and criteria for lustration in Ukraine” with Yegor Sobolev, the Head of the Ukrainian Lustration Committee.
Panel discussion “Maidan advocates: what were the media silent about”.
International conference: 'Documentary films as an instrument of media education on human rights'. The conference is dedicated to establishing the network of permanent Docudays UA cinema clubs at schools, universities, libraries, prisons, and education facilities within penitentiary system. As well as to creation of Docudays UA Online education center for human rights as an instrument for developing legal consciousness among youth. Besides Ukrainian media education experts, the conference will be attended by representatives of the following festivals: One World (Czech Republic), Watch Dogs (Poland), Flaertiana (Russia).
This year, the festival presents two photo projects at a time:
- photo exhibition “Faces of Maidan” by Igor Gaidai at Camera Gallery (March 22-28);
- photo exhibition “Photo 51: Is corruption encrypted in the DNA of Russia?” by Mikhail Fridman at Kyiv Cinema House (March 22-28).
For the second time we invite our viewers to visit the documentary workshop DOCU/CLASS. This year master classes by known documentary film directors, producers, and critics will be held at Kinopanorama cinema at 12 PM and 2 PM: Ilona Bicevska “From local idea to international screen: Independent co-production in post-Soviet space?”; Misha Friedman: Analytical photojournalism; Andrei Zagdansky: A director’s inner film; Dmytro Tyazhlov: IndieLab 2013: Practical master class in documentary film’; Igor Gaidai: Personal projects in photography ; Simone Baumann: Producing political films: Motivations and risks, and the specifics of working in Eastern Europe; Oleksandr Techynskyi, Oleksiy Solodunov, and Dmytro Stoykov: Close Combat Documentary ; Chris McDonald: How to devise a successful strategy to promote a film at festivals?; Max Afanasyev, Oleksandr Yudin: Liquid Television; Boris Mitić:The Entire Doc Film Industry Explained in 5 Drawings; Uldis Sekulis: Creative documentary in made-for-TV format; Maczei Kuziemski: Role of traveling in documentary filmmaking; Nadia Parfan and Illya Gladshtein: Chornobyl and cinematography: from disaster chronicle to mutant kids.
On March 22-28, daily, from 3 to 9 PM we invite you to ‘look through’ the pages of our Live Library. This is our traditional format of communication between viewers and guests and our living books – people experiencing biased treatment in our society: a policeman, a refugee, a Muslim, a gay, and a feminist.
More festival events on our site www.docudays.org.ua and our Facebook page www.facebook.com/DocudaysUA.
Press conference participants: Volodymyr Yavorskiy, member of Organization committee, member of Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union; Igor Gaidai, photographer, author of the documentary exhibition ‘Faces of Maidan’; Gennadiy Kofman, festival program director, member of the selection board; Daria Averchenko, festival PR director and member of the selection board.
Contact person:
Alisa Gordiychuk, [email protected]
Tel: +38 093 650 35 86
