It is always a pleasure to attend the annual film
festival mounted by Cambridge Ukrainian Studies, a centre in the Department of
Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge. Usually at least part of the festival is held
in the Arts Picturehouse, but this year both nights were in the Winstanley
lecture theatre at Trinity College, serviceable but not quite as plush. Cambridge Ukrainian Studies director Dr Rory
Finin in his introduction explained that while the organisers had managed to
fend off the demands for space by the James Bond vehicle Skyfall three years ago, the might of Spectre was too powerful, leaving no space for Carpathian shepherds
at the arts cinema; ‘Bond is no lover of Ukrainian documentary film’, he wryly
commented.
The eighth annual festival had a different format as
well. Previously there had been a mix of
fiction and documentaries, but this time no fiction was included because of a
collaboration with ‘Docudays UA International Documentary Human Rights Film
Festival’, which had supplied six documentaries of varying kinds as the entire
programme. And six interesting
documentaries they were. Friday night
began with two shorts on a theme that is at the heart of recent Ukrainian
history, and from which the repercussions are still being felt: EuroMaidan, or
the Revolution of Dignity as it is also called.
Last year we
saw Maidan, a magisterial portrait of
a society in upheaval, showing how idealistic people who yearn for a better
life can come together in an effort to effect change. Maidan
is Everywhere (Kateryna Hornostai, 2015, 36 mins) and The Medic Leaves Last (Svitlana Shynko, 2014, 26 mins) are intimate
portraits that complement the larger-scale film.
Maidan
is Everywhere intersperses the Madian protests with
people going about their everyday lives, as life continues even in the face of
violent political change. We follow them
at home, at a wedding, even army cadets giving an oath of loyalty, though to
what may have been unclear to the young men.
We also see that not everybody supported the protesters wholeheartedly:
a group of students gather in a street to the annoyance of a local resident who
complains that they are blocking the road.
Surprisingly, the film opens with a couple of young women in an open
space, one about to interview the other.
The interviewee is nervous, and they are distracted by a small funfair
in the background. Only at the end, when
we return to them, do we realise that actually they are not in Ukraine at all
but in Red Square, Moscow. They unfurl
the Ukrainian flag, whereupon a police car smartly rolls up and an officer
politely but firmly tells them that they cannot exhibit the flag in the
square. They put it away, but as the
Ukrainian interviewee whispers to the camera, ‘Maidan is everywhere’. A bit of an exaggeration perhaps; Pussy Riot
notwithstanding, Putin is rather more popular at home than Viktor Yanukovych
was in Ukraine before he was ousted in 2014.
The
Medic Leaves Last also has Maidan as its backdrop, but
brings the emphasis down to a personal level, that of a volunteer doctor,
Tanya, who treats minor injuries sustained in the Maidan protests with very
basic equipment. But this is not just
about the protests either because we follow her back for a visit to her home
where her ancient widowed mother keeps ducks and worries about her daughter’s
safety. Tanya ironically comments on her
‘beautiful village’ while standing in a bus shelter piled high with rubbish,
and expresses her concern at how close it is to the conflict zone in the east
of the country. The film in fact ends
with her leaving for the east with other volunteers to help those fighting the
pro-Russian rebels.
The final film on Friday night was Living Fire (Ostap Kostiuk, 2013, 80
mins). It is much more polished than the
two shorts which preceded it, following a group of Carpathian shepherds as they
take their flocks up the mountains for the summer months, looking after the
animals and making cheese. The film is
beautifully shot, gloomy interiors contrasting with the broad open spaces. It is a masculine way of life, no women
participating, and one of the wives left behind complains that it is like being
widowed for four months of the year. An
old man, who had been a shepherd, tots up with regret how little time he spent
with his late wife in over half a century of marriage. Somewhat chillingly, he joshes an embarrassed
young boy, saying how much alike they are after noting how little education he
himself had received. The boys who help
do a rigorous job which must leave little opportunity for studying, a way of
life in a remote place that can only hamper their wider life chances. Some scenes are shot in a school and the
teacher asks the pupils to list their talents.
One lad rubs his writing away, and when the teacher picks up the blank
sheet the boy says that he has no talent.
It is a stark reminder how hard lives can stunt expectations. The men say how difficult the job is, and the
economics look precarious. With such
conditions it is easy to see why it is a dying way of life, with only one
pasture in the mountains still being operated in this way. It is an open question whether this is a good
or a bad thing.
Saturday’s session began with a counterbalance to
the Maidan films, examining what happened when the party was over. Post
Maidan (Serhii Andrushko, 2014, 42 mins) follows four individuals from
different parts of Ukraine – Kiev, Donetsk, Crimea, Irpin (to the north of the
capital) – as they reflect on what had happened and what might be to come, both
on a personal and national level. The
period prior to the 2014 presidential elections seem to have brought deflation
after the excitement of the Maidan protests and the feeling that anything was
possible. As well as Russia’s
interference there was continuing cynicism about the ineffectual process of
lustration to reform the old regime, the role the Berkut police force had
played during the Maidan occupation, and the domestic political system
generally. The shanty camp was only
slowly cleared, the eyesore creating a backlash among sections of the public. One commentator claimed the reason for the
delay was because it would be needed again, the implication being that the root
causes of the protests, economic and political corruption, would continue. One of the four individuals being followed is
standing for election, and a passer-by to whom he speaks tells him to his face
that he will be like the rest, once he
has their votes he won’t bother with their needs. On the other hand another becomes an election
officer, and is proud of the efficient and fair way in which her polling
station operated. The film displays
optimism as well as soul searching and anxiety.
I’m sure there were subtleties that passed over the heads of
non-Ukrainians, but it was a superb portrait of a country in flux.
The
Place We Call Home (Thora Lorentzen and Sybilla Marie
Tuxen, 2014, 30 mins) also turns from a focus on the broader mass movement to individual lives,
and how people are coping with the new reality.
Most of these are vignettes, including a soldier smoking before
returning to the conflict in the east, and hunting for a grenade under a
mattress, assuring the occupant that the grenade doesn’t have a detonator –
thankfully he manages to find it; a mother praying with an Orthodox priest for
the country’s sons; an old woman singing a folk song inside a station
entrance. The majority of it is about
tattooed young men relaxing and playing music, joking about drugs, their
absorption insulating them from the difficulties of life outside. Noteworthy is singing in English, a nod to
western-leaning aspirations and desire to integrate into wider international
culture. The overwhelming feeling of these
snapshots is one of anticipation, something round the corner about to happen
that can only be faced with apprehension.
The final film was the festival’s highlight for me, Crepuscule (Valentyn Vasianovych, 2014,
61 mins). On paper it is unpromising:
‘82 year-old Mariia and her son Sashko live in the remote Ukrainian
countryside. Sashko has gone blind, and
his mother clings to life to care for him.’
On the screen it was amazing. It fits
with Living Fire as a depiction of a gruelling
way of life in a remote rural location, where there is no social support system
other than the kindness of neighbours.
Sashko has gone almost completely blind as a result of untreated
diabetes, and it is frustrating for him.
He does what he can with his limited sight, and watching him use an
extremely large power drill largely by touch is excruciating. The bulk of the work falls to his mother, a
small but tough woman who manages to keep a sense of humour in terrible
adversity, whether gathering hay, feeding the cow, dealing with a new-born calf
or decapitating a chicken. The work is
arduous and the two bicker but rub along together. The main enemy is probably boredom. In one scene Mariia waits in the snow for the
milk tanker, staring down a long straight road.
A small dot appears, and slowly gets bigger, to reveal itself as a man
and child on a bicycle accompanied by a dog.
We wait further, another dot appears, and gets bigger, and at last the
tanker arrives. Time stretches, and the
wait becomes a metaphor for the slowness of progress to make a significant difference
here. Apart from the electricity and
motorised transport it seems to be a life that they and their ancestors have
lived from time immemorial, so it is a surprise when a local comes to do some
hand-ploughing for them and his wife receives a call on her mobile phone. It is looks like a clash of cultures, until
husband and wife climb on board their traditional horse-drawn wagon, at which
point it is obvious that having network coverage makes only a small difference
when the weight of history is pushing you down.
The film ends with a caption, and it is not the outcome one is expecting
from the synopsis, evoking compassion and the realisation that it is too easy
to take one’s own comforts for granted.
Once again Rory Finnin and his team have provided a
fascinating range of films from Ukraine and they are to be thanked for
organising the festival, which is not only free but comes with
hospitality. The event offered ample
evidence that there is a thriving documentary movement in the country. If there is a criticism it is that the films
about Maidan share a particular agenda.
It may be justified bearing in mind the conflict with Russia, but as the
disgruntled local in Maidan is Everywhere
indicates, there are other voices that are not being given weight (it seems
unlikely that he was only irritated at people blocking cars, his complaint was
more likely a proxy for a wider unhappiness at the situation, of which the
students were a convenient target). As
far as I could tell there were no interviews in any of the documentaries with anybody
who was avowedly a supporter of Yanukovych or held pro-Russian views. Perhaps also it is time to examine more
deeply systemic problems in Ukrainian society (it is alarming to read Leonid
Bershidsky’s 6 November 2015 Bloomberg article ‘Ukraine Is in Danger of
Becoming a Failed State’).
While it would have been nice to see more of
Ukraine’s feature film production to add variety to the programme, it is always
worth being reminded of the difficulties its citizens face politically,
socially and economically. Ukraine may be
going through a difficult phase, but at least its documentary movement is
thriving, compiling a resource that will be invaluable to future
historians. The Ninth Annual Cambridge
Festival of Ukrainian Film will doubtless provide a further instalment in this
unfolding story of a country experiencing tremendous stresses.
