All crises notwithstanding, the festival Molodist continues to function as a more or less tuned mechanism. This year some screenings were delayed or cancelled, but due to the socioeconomic context, these unpleasant things can hardly be regarded something important.
The main event of the beginning of the festival was, without doubt, the premiere of the new film by the leading Ukrainian director Serhii Loznytsia, The Event. Everything met the format of a serious international forum: the director brought a new work (its world premiere in Venice took place only 1.5 months ago, and nobody had seen this film in Eastern Europe before the festival), gave a press conference and numerous interviews, held two extremely rich in content master classes. Namely due to such festival visits the involvement in the world cinema process is felt the most. Another important event was the presentation of an international documentary project, with participation of Ukraine, Z.O.S. (Russian acronym for Convict Oleh Sentsov; director Askold Kurov, with participation of Andrii Lytvynenko, Russia – Ukraine – Estonia) – a feature film about the Oleh Sentsov process will be finished at the beginning of 2016.
Speaking generally about the program, the needed variety was created. For example, 14 feature films, 23 students’ films, and 17 short films competed for the Scythian Deer. Ukrainian films took part in all three categories, however they were not much successful; but the hope remains for dialectic law of quantity converting to quality.
It is more important that for another year both the competition program and the films beyond competitions were equally interesting. This is a result of the fact that for the competition for the Scythian Deer feature debuts were selected that have achieved some success at the forums of A class – in Venice, Cannes, Berlin, Locarno. Even the most successful debutants appreciate attention, need encouragement, and an environment for communication – Molodist provides all this in one way or another. Besides, thanks to this approach the Ukrainian audience will see the pictures that will not be available on the Internet or screened for a very long time.
Among the programs beyond the competition, the excitement was of course caused by the Festival of Festivals. The program included the winner of this year’s Golden Palm – Dheepan by Jacques Audiard (France), the winner of this year’s Berlinale Best Director’s Prize, Romanian Aferim! (Radu Jude), and the winner of the Grand Prix and Audience’s Favorite prize at 2015 Sundance Film Festival, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (the US), and the touching melodrama Mustang by Deniz Gamze Erguven (France – Germany – Turkey – Qatar, the Cannes Europa Cinemas Label Award at Directors’ Fortnight) about young girls’ fight for dignity in a patriarchal family. The greatest present for film critics and cinema aesthetes was the new work by Swedish patriarch Roy Andersson A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (Golden Lion of the Venice International Film Festival in 2014) is probably the most weird tragicomedy of all that have been shot in Europe over the past 10 years; this is a principled, but compassionate research of human nature.
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As for the competition of the feature films, there was an intrigue, which had an unexpected outcome: the jury gave the Grand-Prix and 10,000-dollar cash prize to Israeli Princess (director Tali Shalom-Ezer), an ordinary youth melodrama. Princess is about a teenager girl in the transition age. Although the work of actors is not bad, the turns in the script look banal, and the works of the director is as if weakened by anemia. But who knows, maybe the jury simply identified this as a uniqueness of the author’s style.
The greatest energy into competition was brought by three films: Sleeping Giant (Canada, director Andrew Cividino), Pikadero (Ben Sharrock, Great Britain – Spain), and Ixcanul (Jayro Bustamante, Guatemala – France).
The Sleeping Giant starts as a typical story of teenagers’ friendship. A senior student Adam spends his summer vacations with his parents at a lake. His routine ends, when he meets local mischief-makers Riley and Nate. At a certain moment the plot that seemed quite predictable suddenly breaks and becomes abruptly adult, turning into a full-fledged psychological drama, where through the surface of general decency, killing passions break through, and Cividino balances them well in the development of dramaturgy.
PATRIARCHS (MOLODIST LONGTIME DIRECTOR ANDRII KHALPAKHCHI AND NATIONAL CONTEST JURY HEAD ROMAN BALAIAN)
However, the prize of the full-fledged competition went to Pikadero and Ixcanul. Objectively, they were the best pictures of the competition, so they could have shared the grand-prix.
Pikadero is a comedy with decorations of post-crisis Europe. Director Ben Sharrock managed to create a light, funny, and at the same time subtle lyrical film based on the social material. The main heroes are an intern at a factory and an unemployed girl – because of the economic crisis in Spain they cannot settle their intimate life, because they have to live in their parents’ homes. Having no money for a hotel, they are looking for public places for sex that are called pikadero – some observation platforms, old parking lots, new buildings, and other places. Namely this search generates a lot of funny situations. The director apparently is a good student of the cult Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki: in the same way, his actors are playing with absolute imperturbability, in particular, when they find themselves in uncomfortable situations – this makes the comic effect considerably stronger. You laugh at the heroes, but at the same time sympathize with them, and the talent of the author shows itself in creating of a soft lyrical ending for a generally ironic film – this combination, beyond doubt, is an attribute of masterfulness.
Ixcanul is a double debut: first of all, Guatemala had never taken part in Molodist before (like in Berlinale at the beginning of this year, but this film won the Alfred Bauer Prize), and secondly, this is the first feature film for 38-year-old Jayro Bustamante.
The heroes are Mayan Indian peasants. They earn their living by gathering coffee beans at a plantation, which is not an easy work. Nearby there is an active volcano which must be soothed by prayers and sacrifices. You cannot sow anything at a corn field, because it is full of snakes. People live in total poverty. The main boss is owner of the plantation, he can deprive an entire family of food and housing. The local authorities don’t care about this situation. The only way out is illegal migration to the US or marrying your daughter Maria to the boss. Actually, the film starts with a scene, when at a dinner dedicated to the engagement everyone discusses the heroine as a trading item.
Bustamante didn’t yield to temptation to create an attraction of folklore or landscape exotics (the volcano is never shown fully). The main thing for him is to tell a story. All actors are organic and expressive, all natural attractions, like the city interiors, are appropriate as the environment of the heroes, they underline in different ways their lack of rights of the people and their will to life. Bustamante avoids another danger as well: creating a Cinderella story or a noire story about a dishonored common girl. He keeps the balance. Maria makes a sacrifice, not to the volcano, but to her family, and this is a great sacrifice – to make things change for the better, but visually splendid finale is still full of hidden sadness. Ixcanul is not a rattle of poetic cinema, but an honest social drama, consistent in its form. Bustamante created more than a good film. He gave voice to his community. His poetic style is based not on shamanic rites and funny indigenous people, but on the everyday heroism of these people; therefore all the prizes he has won over this year are well-deserved.
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The Molodist Festival has had more successful years, as well as worse ones. But the fact that the festival continues to function and every year supplies us, like a clock, with good cinema is a miracle in itself.
I would like the same to start happening in the Ukrainian film production.
