We continue to introduce a variety of Ukrainian projects at this year's festival in Leipzig. The films will be presented in a new programme and two competition slots.
The full-length film Fragile Memory (dir. Igor Ivanko) will be shown in the newly launched "Panorama" section dedicated to films from central and eastern Europe that are closely related to the history of DOK Leipzig. The programme will combine the works of both well-known filmmakers and talented beginners. The film Three Women (dir. Maksym Melnyk) will compete for the Audience Award. The project When will the winter of 2022 end? (dir. Hanna Trofimova) will participate in International Competition for Short Documentary.
Fragile Memory
Режисер: Igor Ivanko
Producers: Alexandra Bratychshenko, Mariia Ponomarova, Peter Kerekes, Igor Ivanko
Ihor Ivanko sheds light on the life of his grandfather, Leonid Burlaka, a cinematographer from the glory days of the Odesa Film Studio, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Born in 1938, Burlaka came of age during the ‘thaw’ of Nikita Khrushchev’s Soviet premiership. It was during this time that the cinematographer also took hundreds of photographs of life in Odesa. Ivanko explores his grandfather’s life through them. Where Burlaka’s memory is limited because of Alzheimer’s, Ivanko adds context with a rich trove of archive footage, the testimonies of friends and home movies. The result not only creates a fascinating portrait of Burlaka’s early life, it charts the history of the studio he worked for and a heritage that is resolutely distinct.
When will the winter of 2022 end?
Director and producer: Hanna Trofimova
With the beginning of the full-scale war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, the director was in Kyiv filming what was happening to me and the people around me. She filmed her observations of others from her balcony, walked the streets, stood in the shop line and tried to put her life into a new reality. The film consists of videos she shot during the first three months of the full-scale war and entries in the diary she’s been keeping the whole time.
Three Women
Director: Maksym Melnyk
Producers: Andrea Wohlfeil, Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf
Somewhere in the Carpathians between Ukraine, Slovakia and Poland lies the village of Stuzhytsia. In Ukrainian the name of the village means something along the lines of a ‘cold place’. The film tells the stories of three women: the farmer Hanna, the postwoman Maria and the biologist Nelya. Amid the mountains, they have to cope with their social reality and loneliness. The colder the Carpathian winter gets, the more human warmth the film team finds. In a tiny kitchen, Hanna shares her loneliness with the filmmakers, who remind her of her deceased sons. In the village’s post office, postwoman Maria has neither stamps nor heating, but customers are warmed with liquor and songs. Somewhere in the woods and caves, biologist Nelya looks for animal droppings which are a treasure to her. The film portrays an unknown place in the middle of Europe where people have to decide daily between leaving and staying.
We would like to remind you that Ukrainian films from the Spotlight on: Docudays UA 2022 programme will also be presented within the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film.
Main photo: a still from Fragile Memory
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The Spotlight on: Docudays UA 2022 programme was made possible with the support of Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media. Thanks to support by the Ukrainian Institute and the Goethe-Institut and Goethe-Institut in Exile, additional filmmakers and delegations from Ukraine will be able to participate in the festival and the industry offerings in Leipzig.
