When we were devising the DOCU/ART program, we were sure that we would have no trouble finding various films about artists. Who wouldn’t be interested in seeing famous personalities through the eyes of vigilant documentary-makers? But the program, as a self-willed orchestra, played its own moving melody from the very beginning. Heroic pathos was added by the contemporary Chinese artist and dissident, Ai Weiwei, known throughout the world for his art events which expose the inhumane politics of the Chinese regime. Soon after, the Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi found himself drawn to the artist’s warlike slogan of ‘Never sorry’ as if by a magnet. “If you are a filmmaker and your hands aren’t tied, you will always find a way to make films,” he said, regardless of his house arrest and a ban on filming in Iran, and proved his words by making This Is Not a Film. Japanese pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama examined women’s taboos in the film Water Children, and saw the age-long battle between body and mind inside each one of us. In this way, DOCU/ART received its logical and infinitely beautiful ending.
Olha Birzul, program curator
