Gennady Kofman, Programme Director of the Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival:
«Ten years ago, when everything was just beginning, I had already had experience of organizing festivals. But we couldn't even have imagined how hard this one would be. Maybe this is why everything worked out in the end. And yet, even back then – ten years ago – we couldn’t even dream about finding such wonderful partners and friends of the festival who, having shared our enthusiasm one day, or maybe having trusted our adventure spirit, have stayed with us throughout all these years. I am deeply grateful to all of those, who have helped and are helping us make this festival happen. Could we even have dreamt about finding almost a hundred partner-organizations from the entire country, who will hold the Traveling Festival in the furthest corners of Ukraine? Today, we have a real, strong informal network of Docudays UA.
Currently, there are numerous discussions about the future of film festivals in the era of the Internet. But I think our festival will not be one of those that goes into the virtual world, because for our audience it is important to communicate after the screening, and because the directors and producers – just as it is for us, the organizers – need to see the faces and the eyes of the audience. Also, as experience tells us, Docudays UA is now also an environment, which helps our compatriots awaken their feeling of self-respect, and inspires people to actively defend their rights.
The new epoch came about quite inconspicuously. Now the Docudays UA team has wonderful young people on it, for whom documentary films are both a way of communicating with the world, and a way of life at the same time. And also, these young people simply do not want to understand and accept that sometimes there are impossible tasks. And so, all our endeavors are successful.
Maybe the greatest injustice we will never be able to overcome is that the last week of March is physically too little time for all the excellent films that we would love to show our audience.
The films that Docudays UA selects represent the world in a more complex and multi-sided way than television programs. That is why I traditionally do not make the wish to ‘enjoy the show’. I simply wish us all ‘good films’, and welcome to the Docudays UA environment».
