The 1st International Ukrainian Documentary Film Festival “Contact” began last Sunday. This standard phrase actually contains several new aspects. It is really the first of its kind in Ukraine, particularly as an international contest of documentaries, and even in the post-Soviet countries. It so happened that the Soviet (and then, alas, independent Ukrainian) bureaucrats in charge of filmmaking, having one of the world’s best documentary schools, regarded documentaries as secondary compared to motion pictures. As a result, the organizers of the Molodist Film Festival this fall were the first to fill in the niche. And they appear to have done a good job.
Andrei Khalpakchi, artistic director of Contact (and Molodist), said in an opening address that the very idea belonged to [the late] Larysa Rodnianska. She had set up and run for 15 years the Contact Documentary Studios, and this festival was held in her memory. The key theme is mother and son. Andrei Khalpakchi also promised a “pleasant surprise” after the opening show.
Larysa Rodnianska’s undeniable authority among the professional filmmakers is obvious in the organization of Contact. The international and national juries are made up noted script writers, directors, theoreticians, and producers, among them our expert Serhiy Bukovsky; Vitali Manski, a very interesting Russian documentarian, and European Film Academy’s Francine Brucher. Very impressive figures are at the head of the juries. The international one is led by Roman Balaian and the national one by the Ukrainian, US, and European operatic start Volodymyr Hryshko (this was a very smart and unexpected move of the organizers). Volodymyr Hryshko was absent, however, being away on a concert tour. The president paid a visit (although it wasn’t the pleasant surprise promised by Khalpakchi). As is often the case, the head of state was almost an hour late, but he appeared accompanied by the First Lady and they took seats in the parterre to watch the opening documentary Roses for Signora Raisa. The 50-min. production by the Russian Natalia Ivanova is a tragic and in many ways characteristic love story about Mario from Italy and Katya, a Ukrainian girl from Kharkiv oblast. They met during WW II, with Mario a POW and Katya an Ostarbeiter, in a German labor camp in a Berlin suburb. Both saw the end of the war and planned a long and happy married life, but then found themselves separated by the Berlin Wall. Mario and their son Stefano ended up in Italy. Katya was first sent to a prison camp in the Komi ASSR and after rehabilitation returned to her native village of Petrovske in Kharkiv oblast. It was by a stroke of luck that 43 years later Stefano’s placard attracted Raisa Gorbacheva’s attention and the family could reunite. They live happily in Salerno. The film is made traditionally, with a voice offscreen, old newsreel footage, and interviews, but it is very touching because it’s a true story.
Afterward the audience received the pleasant surprise. First a very moved head of state stepped on the podium and shared stories from his family history, how his mother Kateryna Chumachenko managed to escape being sent to Germany for slave labor, and how his mother-in-law was sent there. And then the audience of the Red Hall watched fascinated as one of the heroes of the documentary, Stefano, son of an Italian father and Ukrainian mother, appeared onstage. Viktor Yushchenko gave him a medal commemorating the 60th anniversary of victory of Nazism and asked him to convey it to his mother Kateryna Khanina. It was a truly solemn moment. Many in the audience must have tried to visualize any of the previous leaders make such an appearance, without a tie and a battalion of bodyguards, attending a film festival, least of all a documentary one...
In a word, the Contact festival so far measures up to its name. Whether it will be full contact will become clear after five days of showings and discussions.
