Film Selection
The Cleaners
Dive into a secret, third-world shadow industry of online content moderation. Here we meet five ‘digital scavengers’, a handful of thousands of people outsourced from Silicon Valley whose job is to delete ‘inappropriate’ content from the internet. In a parallel struggle, we meet people around the globe whose lives are dramatically affected by online censorship. A typical ‘cleaner’ must observe and rate thousands of intense images every day, from war-zone photography to pornography, leading to lasting psychological impact. Yet underneath their work lies profound questions around what makes an image art or propaganda and what defines journalism.
The film is nominated for 'Rights Now!' Award
Hans Block is a German theatre director, musician, and filmmaker. He studied music at the Berlin University of the Arts and directing at the Ernst Busch Institute for Theatre Directing, also in Berlin. Moritz Riesewieck is a German theatre director, author, and filmmaker. He studied economics as a scholar of the German National Academic Foundation, followed by directing at the Ernst Busch Institute for Theatre Directing in Berlin. Moritz Riesewieck and Hans Block have been working as a team since 2007 under the label Laokoon, creating theatre performances and cross-media work. The Cleaners is their debut documentary.
My Friend Don Quixote
The film is about a dreamer who is trying to create an avant-garde theatre in the Donbas.
Stanislava Doronchenko was born in 1995 in Mariupol, and graduated from the Mariupol College of Arts. In 2018, she graduated as a documentary filmmaker from the Karpenko-Kary Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television (workshop by Valentyn Marchenko), and worked as a director on television. Since 2018 she has been working as a first AD in the film industry. Now she is working as a line producer and second director at PRO! Production Ukraine, and also as a filmmaker in her own right.
Lifelong Songs
Two women with very different lives, united by their common name Nadia, which means hope in Ukrainian, but also by their deep love of song. Some time ago, singing in Ukraine was commonplace; traditional songs were powerful collective meditations that accompanied people from birth to death. Nadia Mykytivna, 82, from the village of Kriachkivka, is one of those few who still keeps this fading tradition alive. She has been singing in the Drevo folk ensemble for 58 years, and is well-known by folklorists all over Eastern Europe. Nadia Mykytivna is the last member of the original Drevo ensemble, and musicians from all over the world travel to Kriachkivka to learn from her. On the other side of the ocean, in the United States, there is another Nadia. A short visit to Kriachkivka and hearing its songs changed her life. Inspired by this, Nadia made an intimate autobiographical theatrical monologue, The Broken…
Ulyana Osovska is a director, social activist and traveller. Born in Ukraine, she has a master’s degree in international economics. Ulyana was an active participant in Ukraine's revolution of 2014 which sparked her interest in documenting the world through a camera. She debuted as a director in 2015 with the short documentary Election Agent. In the same year she co-funded the Docutoloka CSO, which brings together documentary artists and social activists. In 2017, Ulyana’s feature-length documentary debut Almost 10,000 Voters had its world premiere at the 33rd Warsaw Film Festival in 2017 and its Ukrainian premiere at Docudays UA in 2018. At Dream City Rivne IFF, this film received the Best National Documentary award.
Girl Against Gravity
Erdenchimeg (11) has her mind set on becoming a famous contortionist – a speciality of Mongolian acrobats. Her team at the circus school is invited to become part of a prestigious show on the parliament square. But suddenly Erdenchimeg seems incapable of managing her exercise. The prospect of becoming the ‘odd one out’ on her team is all the more frightening because her dad is imprisoned, her mother is a former drunk, and Erdenchimeg was only admitted to the circus school as an act of good will. Not just her own dreams, but also the dignity of her family is at stake. But in the end she finds her inner strength and pulls through!
Recommended age 7+
Jens Pedersen studied at Roskilde University and San Francisco State University. Pedersen has directed a number of documentary films, including the series Faith Hope Afghanistan (2013) and Kids on the Silk Road (2017). An episode from Faith Hope Afghanistan won the Audience Award and the Award for Best Documentary at the BUSTER Film Festival in 2014, and both series have had several episodes selected for a number of festivals such as IDFA.
Show time & place
Pyriatyn,
59, Soborna St.
