During this year’s Docudays UA the two Ukrainian series of short documentary films are going to premiere: Beyond the Euros and Open Access.
Beyond the Euros is the result of group work by a young creative artists’ laboratory. Its idea can probably be defined as an attempt to personalize the crowd. To be able to see, to find a human face in the crowd that seems faceless, grouped around a sports event, a political issue or any other focus. And to share this. This is probably the essence – of the almanac, as well as the laboratory itself. How successful this experiment is, is up to the viewer. In any case, it has happened. And in front of us is a series of independent views of the surrounding reality by young authors – keen, thoughtful, worried or ironic, but never indifferent. To see a separate human face in the crowd also means to keep your own face – in any crowd… which becomes personalized through this, and gets a chance to turn into a society. This is not a new idea; however, people need to be reminded of it. This project is a cooperation of the Ukrainian Documentary Workshop, the Dragon Forum International Academy, and Ukrainian and Polish filmmakers. Artistic Supervision: Jacek Bławut, Serhiy Bukovsky, Dorota Roszkowska and Oleksandr Balahura.
Part one: March 23, 9:30 pm, Cinema House, Red Hall. Part two: March 24, 12:30 pm, Cinema House, Blue Hall.
Creators of the series Open Access – film directors and journalists Volodymyr Tykhy, Dmytro Konovalov, Serhiy Andrushko, Zhanna Dovhych and Dmytro Tiazhlov – were trying to examine the effectiveness of a new tool to control the government. In 2011, a new law was adopted in Ukraine, ‘On Access to Public Information’. It allows information to be requested from state authorities which had previously been inaccessible, or even closed to any ordinary person. This law was approved at a time when the authorities are on the offensive against the people’s democratic freedoms, the level of corruption is high and many laws are neglected altogether. Five people and their associates decided to challenge the system. They bumped into a certain problem or a serious question, as the state or some officials were not performing their duty. The lack of transparency, indifference, private interest, and a lack of responsibility by the country’s leaders – that is what the characters in these documentary films have stood up to. They live in different parts of Ukraine, they do not know each other. They are united by one thing only – a desire to solve the most important issues by taking advantage of the possibility to apply for public information.
March 25, 5:30 pm, Cinema House, Red Hall.
