This year’s Docudays UA will open with Sanatorium by Gar O’Rourke and conclude with Agent of Happiness, directed by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó. Gennady Kofman, a producer and board member of the NGO Docudays and the Selection Council, comments the film selection and their meanings.
Visitors arrive at a neglected provincial sanatorium for rejuvenating mud treatments and electroshock therapy. Despite the film’s clearly comical beginning, I remember the sense of despair in the first few minutes. Was this a clever pastiche of Soviet resort advertisement films or a condescending mockery by a Western director of realities he finds exotic? Had I not, by the will of fate and my profession, been familiar with such institutions — not only in remote provinces but just a few kilometers from Kyiv — I would never have believed that this temporal dislocation wasn’t a fictional invention. The film’s visual language and style act like a time portal, transporting us back some fifty years.
Sanatorium, the feature-length debut by Irish director Gar O’Rourke, documents a season in the life of the once-renowned Kuyalnyk sanatorium, located on the outskirts of Odesa. Together with cinematographer Denys Melnyk, the director observes the unhurried life of the residents, introducing us to the stories of patients and staff in a vast complex built in the 1970s.
“As the war [started by Russia] echoes through the lime-green corridors of Kuyalnyk sanatorium, both patients and staff search for health, happiness, and love,” notes the film’s synopsis.
The film contains everything: sorrow, pain, humor, and love. Sanatorium becomes a powerful cinematic study of Ukrainian resilience and a heartfelt ode to Ukraine and its people.
It’s worth noting that the film continues the director’s long-standing fascination with Ukraine. His first short film, Kachalka (2019), was about Kyiv’s open-air gym of the same name, often dubbed “the world’s most hardcore gym.” Cinematographer Denys Melnyk is now one of Ukraine’s leading DPs, successfully working in both documentary and narrative cinema. In fact, this year’s Docudays UA program features several films shot by Melnyk, including Militanthropos, which had its world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
While the patients and staff of the sanatorium search for happiness, the government of Bhutan measures national progress through Gross National Happiness.
Agent of Happiness, directed by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó, follows people who travel door to door, much like census takers, collecting data for a government survey on happiness. They ask a total of 148 questions.
One of many agents working for the Bhutanese government is Amber. He explores various forms of well-being across households and lifestyles. At the same time, Amber has been fighting his own battle for happiness for decades. As a member of the Nepali minority, he is not a citizen and cannot even legally marry. This touching film offers a unique glimpse into exotic Bhutan while, through the lives of ordinary people, addressing questions that are deeply personal and universally relatable.
The 22nd Docudays UA is held with the financial support of the European Union, the Embassy of Sweden in Ukraine, International Renaissance Foundation. The opinions, conclusions, or recommendations do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union, the governments, or organisations of these countries. Responsibility for the content of the publication lies exclusively with the authors and editors of the publication.
