Visualization of journalists’ issues

After films screening in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, and Kharkiv Festival “Kinomedia” recently finished in Kyiv. Eight short films that won the festival competition in the past years were presented to the audience at “Ye” bookstore. The name of this year’s finalist will be announced on December 1 during the closing ceremony of the festival. Admission of films for the festival this year will be open until November 15 and the winners of the contest will be named on December 5.

“Kinomedia” is a quite young Short Film Festival, which aims to show the world of journalism from the inside, expose its true nature, that’s why their motto is “Undress media in films!” According to the organizers – members of the Independent Association of Broadcasters, they tend to provoke discussion among the participants about the role of the media in society and how it affects the lives of communities and individuals. Thus, the festival performs two functions at a time: educational and promotional for the Ukrainian film making industry. In three years of its existence the festival has given a chance to the creative youth to be heard and seen. Today, the winners work on TV channels and cooperate with film studios. Kateryna Kryvoshei (Media with You), finalist of the 2010, won a trip to the Cannes Film Festival. And the winner of 2011 Ivan Havryliak (How it Happened) won a professional camera. This year, the organizers promise money prize for the Grand Prix of the festival.

It is interesting that anyone can compete for the main prize because there is no profile or age limit defined. The intrigue is that at the traveling festival audience could see the film-winners of the retrospective program and some of the short films submitted for participation this year.

“According to the recent records, the traveling festival was attended by over 130 people and we are working on attracting larger audience. This year we plan to visit Poltava, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Simferopol. We choose cities, which have journalism or philosophy departments because the educational aspect is important for us. The guests of the events have the opportunity to listen to renowned lecturers like Taras Prokhasko and others. This year, we present the films for the first time because before the number of short film finalists was insufficient for a full-featured display. The complete collection of the short films can be found on the kinomedia.in.ua website,” told The Day Khrystyna Drohomyretska, PR-Manager of the Independent Association of Broadcasters.

In general, the festival program includes four nominations: documentary, artistic, experimental, and animated films. Among the winners of the past years there are films of a very wide range of emotional and intellectual message: there were optimistic and ironical films, as well as pessimistic and satirical ones, and at times even openly symbiotic. Like, for example, in case with the film Real News (created by Dmytro Krasny and Kateryna Hornostai), where the main characters are city residents, who were stopped in the street with a trivial question: “What’s new?” Some struggle to squeeze out something meaningful different than “Nothing really, everything’s the same.” Others share with little joys of their lives and slightly open their inner world. After all, haven’t the modern media programmed our minds by producing only “black” sensational news? Another example is the short film Internet: Love for All Ages (author Olena Pavlenko) presented at the festival. It is a bright illustration of the attitude of the Ukrainians of different age and social status to the global network. It is pretty scary that children, in most cases, do not see the flaws of the World Wide Web and among the list of favorite activities they prefer spending time on the Internet.

In an effort to visualize the issues of journalism and to show the attitude of ordinary people to the biased media, the organizers of the festival urge young filmmakers to focus their creative imagination more on the Ukrainian media.