Why do national films have to “meet” with audience beyond the occupied movie theaters?

May 19 through 20 Ostroh Academy (OA) will host the night of Ukrainian cinema: jointly with director Mykhailo Illienko the university is organizing a screening of movies, which are national not only in terms of production, but the content as well. In the background of statements that the national product is not popular these days, the organizers of the project “12+1 hours of Ukrainian cinema” aim to show that the young generation is eager to watch the movies, made by Ukrainians for Ukrainians.

Actually, the stereotype has been partially shattered by Illienko’s movie, which will also be present in the Ostroh screening program, Firecrosser. The movie, which appeared on screens of the movie theaters in January, for 46 days remained among the top 10 most visited films, although it was not practically shown in the evening.

Besides the screening of Firecrosser and communication with the director, producer, and leading actors of the movie, the audience will see short movies and animated movies, which have been winners in the Open Night Festival in the past years, and of course actively share their opinions. The director promised to show in an almost two-day period nearly 30 short movies which have taken part in the festival, mostly the works of the winners.

It will be reminded that the Open Night Festival has been held in Ukraine for 16 years and gathers the best works of the national production, which are hardly possible to see either in movie theaters, or on TV. The festival collection counts for over 500 movies, including the works of winners of international festivals, such as Maryna Vroda (Cannes), Taras Tkachenko, and Stepan Koval (Berlin). Last year the organizers implemented the exclusive form of contact with the audiences: the festival took place simultaneously in Kyiv, Zaporizhia, Chernivtsi, Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Lviv. It is quite possible that Ostroh will become a regular participant in this initiative.

According to Illienko, “12+1 hours of Ukrainian cinema” is also a way to popularize the festival. Besides, it is a good example of how in practice the mechanism of merging the “islands of reasonable and living things” in Ukraine works in practice, which has been supported by The Day working for 15 years.

The idea to hold the project emerged in an interesting and somewhat unusual way. “Last year, when the Open Night Festival was held in Tbilisi, we got acquainted with OA former student Vita Bazan. During our communication we came up with this simple idea, to continue the touring activity in the academy,” the director explained, “We expect that this year’s festival will be held at several venues simultaneously: last year we tried this practice, having six different venues in different cities. Ostroh Academy is eager to join the festival, too. Since this year because of the football championship it will be held only in July, when students will be on vacations, we decided to begin with this project, ‘12+1 hours of Ukrainian cinema.’ It is hard for the national product to reach the audience, but we do our best to facilitate the process. Though it won’t involve mass audience, it will be a contact with the audience, which is interesting and needed.”

In European countries with national moviemaking industry the mechanism of producing cinema is based for the most part on the interest of the audience ready to pay money for this. Can we say that Ukrainians have advanced in understanding of the need to invest in Ukrainian cinematography? The Day inquired Mykhailo ILLIENKO about this:

“There is simply the voice of the audience. But first, it is poorly satisfied, because we are lacking Ukrainian cinema about which we could say it is truly Ukrainian. As for the readiness to invest, we lack necessary mechanisms. For this to take place, we need the mechanism of movie screening, which would guaranty the domestic producers at least something. There are no mechanisms or laws of this kind. You will see America on the billboards of movie theaters. There will be Russia on TV. And when somebody tells me we do have the laws, I ask, why don’t they work? Screening was not so easy for Firecrosser, which has proved without doubt that the audience is ready to buy tickets. Thank God, Bohdan Batrukh and his B&H structure were the distributors of the film. He did his best for the audience to see it. But when the movie reached specific movie theaters, there were about 80, it turned out that the cinema was booked for a year in advance and no one was going to screen our film instead of an American one. Therefore it is very hard for Ukrainian cinema to make their way to cinemas.”

Your movie shatters certain stereotypes concerning Ukrainian cinematography, proving that it is interesting for the audience, and this is quite an event at Ukrainian movie market. You have just mentioned Bohdan Batrukh: practically several weeks ago we saw what happened to his companies because of the desire of certain groups to monopolize the Ukrainian movie market. And these are two contradictory trends. In your opinion, which one is going to win?

“The situation with Batrukh has not been resolved, the procedure is underway. Very unpleasant facts which I regard as the continuation of the attack on Ukrainian cinematography get accumulated. In spite of the numerous protests against the movie Match, it has been permitted to screen. The compulsory Ukrainian-language dubbing has been practically cancelled. Imagine France, if suddenly on governmental level a resolution was approved that foreign movies should be screened in French cinemas in English, German, and Russian? Which tendency is going to win? I am an optimist on the whole, otherwise I would not have shot my latest film, so I think this is just another war. We will have many of them: this is part of Ukraine’s karma. But I think this war will stop and, no matter how overemotional it may sound, Ukrainian cinematography won’t vanish from the cultural map of the world.”

In an interview Dmytro Linartovych, the leading actor in your latest movie, said that the zest of Ukrainian cinema is its poeticism. This poeticism is distinct in your movie. Can you agree with Linartovych?

“On the whole, I think that if a movie lacks something that is impossible to retell by way of prose, this is simply a plot. This feature is distinct in a true work of art, for you cannot retell music by means of words, or Lina Kostenko’s poems. This is what poeticism actually means. This term sometimes leaves one disoriented, because it is hard to find an adequate definition of this phenomenon. Speaking in conditional terms, last explosion of poetic cinematography was connected with Ukraine, and this should be very gratifying for us. I am immensely proud that someone from the audience wrote about my movie that it is a ‘poetic action.’ Actually, this was my aim to make it so.”