On Saturday, October 25, the 44th International Film Festival Molodist was launched in Kyiv. Everything was traditional: the opening in the Ukraina Palace (the opening film is a melodrama by French director Benoit Jacquot Three Hearts), speeches of incumbent and former state officials (Vitalii Klitschko and Viktor Yushchenko delivered greeting speeches), a dance performance on the stage, and an honorary awarding ceremony. The creative union Babylon’13, which has been doing huge work on documentation of events, at first in Maidan, and now – at the war, received a prize for contribution into the national cinematography. The honorary Scythian Deer for contribution into the world cinema art went to Georgian director Eldar Shengelaya. In 1984 his debut film Blue Mountains or An Improbable Story was recognized the best at Molodist Festival, which was a modest student review at the time.
The festival routine began on Sunday, with the screenings of the films of the students’ competition. The average level in this category is quite high, which is clear already from the first films: Blue Blue Sky (Bigna Tomschin, Switzerland) is an ironic and at the same time poetic sketch about childhood; tearful, but having a strong screenplay Sailor’s Song (Gabriel Tzafka, Denmark); tense psychological story Brick (Viktor van der Valk, Netherlands); a thorough documentary portrait of a strong woman in a surrounding which is not very friendly to women, Behind the Wheel (Elise Laker, UK-Tajikistan). One of the participating films which stick in memory is A Paradise (Jayisha Patel, Cuba), a stunning, both in terms of aesthetics and material, research of life in a Cuba settlement with one of the highest levels of suicides in the country.
Tomorrow the most important competition of the festival, the feature-film competition, begins. A Ukrainian film, a drama by Viktoria Trofymenko, Brothers. The Final Confession is taking part in the competition. Speaking about the out-of-competition programs, quite wide representation of Russian cinema seems ostentatious, taking into account the current situation. However, this is not a militarized nonsense about special task force, or pseudo-historical exercises dedicated to the former greatness of the empire, but films of those innumerous independent directors who have preserved their ability to think critically. A corresponding section is called “Cinema of Moral Anxiety,” but this title can be referred to the entire selection of Russian films. I think the festival audience will find documentary films interesting, 21 Days by Tamara Dondurey, a touching story about hospice dwellers, as well as Kyiv/Moscow, which is at the stage of rough editing and shows ordinary people through the eyes of director Olena Khoriova.
The unfinished version of documentary Russia/Ukraine. Reality on Maidan (Russia-Ukraine) will be shown at the closing of the festival. The film is a brainchild of Russian directors Pavel Kostomarov and Alexander Rastorguev, who are known for their skill to organize collective projects. They hand out cameras to a group of authors and give them absolute freedom of actions in filming on a specific topic. In such a way, for example, the film The Term. Beginning of a Big Story, dedicated to the protests which took place in Russia in 2012, emerged. This exciting chronicle will be as well shown in the section “Cinema of Moral Anxiety.” And in Reality Kostomarov and Rastorguev, correspondingly, are trying to understand what happened in Maidan. So, among other films about the winter events (Molodist will show the premiere of Black Book of Maidan and short films shot by Babylon’13), this project is distinguishing because it was created jointly by Russians and Ukrainians in the background of present-day anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russia, and this is especially important.
The international film festival Molodist will last till November 2. The main festival venue is the cinema “Kyiv.” Our newspaper will follow the events and results of the festival.
