During this discussion, we will explore how artistic, curatorial, and research practices that engage with the past through audiovisual archives help shape our visions of the future.
We will talk about working with audiovisual archives in cinema, the responsibility toward memory, ethical dilemmas, and the boundaries of curatorial intervention.
Speakers: Luuk Bouwman, Valentyna Humenna, Taras Spivak, Igor Bezinović
Moderator: Aliona Penzi
Luuk Bouwman has made several feature-length documentaries, including Gerlach, the Last Farmer (2023, IDFA Best Dutch Film Award) with Aliona van der Horst, It Is True But Not Here (2017) about artist and cult musician Dick Verdult, and All Against All (2019) about the rise of fascism in the Netherlands, which premiered at IDFA and for which he was awarded the IDFA Stipend 2023. His documentaries are driven by extensive research and long-term engagement with his subjects, revealing their processes and mechanisms.
Valentyna Humenna is an analyst for the Ukraine War Archive, a digital platform that collects various materials about current events in Ukraine. Valentyna explains how and from whom materials are collected, how the archive processes materials, and who can use them.
As Valentyna Humenna explains, artists are welcome to access the archive for different reasons. She also talks about the toll that archiving in such circumstances can take on people and why many of them nevertheless go on with their work.
Taras Spivak is a film director and editor based in Kyiv. He studied cultural studies at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. In 2021, together with like-minded collaborators, he worked on cataloguing the archive of the Kyivnaukfilm studio. His latest film, Under the Sign of Anchor, his directorial debut, won the main award in the DOCU/SHORT competition at the 21st Docudays UA.
His recent editing work includes the documentaries Special Operation, Where Russia Ends, and Chernobyl 22 by Oleksii Radynskyi, as well as the essay film I Didn't Want to Make a War Film by Nadiia Parfan. He also works as a post-production coordinator and video engineer on internationally co-produced film projects, including Songs of Slow Burning Earth by Olha Zhurba, Intercepted by Oksana Karpovych, and Butterfly Vision by Maksym Nakonechnyi.
Igor Bezinović is a filmmaker born in Rijeka. Although Rijeka is now part of Croatia, it was once part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the Free State of Fiume. Before that, it was part of the Italian Regency of Carnaro; before that, it was part of Austria-Hungary.
His films include The Blockade (Oktavijan prize for Best Croatian Documentary in 2012), Veruda (Oktavijan prize for Best Croatian Documentary in 2015) and A Brief Excursion (Big Golden Arena prize for Best Croatian Feature in 2017), along with many shorts of all shapes and sizes.
His work has been shown internationally at events including IFF Rotterdam, DOK Leipzig, IDFF Ji.hlava, CPH:DOX, Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean, Venice Biennale of Architecture (with Hrvoslava Brkušić for Pulska grupa), Museum of the Moving Image, Guanajuato IFF and Viennale, among others.
He graduated in Filmdirecting from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and in Philosophy, Sociology, and Comparative Literature from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb
Aliona Penzii is the Head of the Archive Department at the Dovzhenko Centre, a film critic and curator. Since 2018, she has been working at the Dovzhenko Centre, focusing on the history of Ukrainian non-fiction film, particularly animation. She has organised retrospectives of Ukrainian animation at international and national venues. She co-created film programs at the Dnipro Centre for Contemporary Culture (DCCC). In 2023, she co-curated the exhibition The river wailed like a wounded beast at the Kyiv Biennale. She is a board member at the National Film Critics Award KINOKOLO. As a film critic, she contributed to LB.ua, Ukrainska Pravda, and other media.
