For the third year in a row, film screenings of the Travelling Festival gather an audience of documentary lovers in the Ye Bookstore in Dnipro. This year, five films were presented here: Black Cleaning by Piotr Armianovski, Biotope by Paul Scholten, The Castle by Tadeusz Kabicz, Shut the Fuck Up! by Taisiia Kutuzova, and Listen by Astrid Bussink.

The audience was very engaged by and commented a lot on the film Shut the Fuck Up! by Taisiia Kutuzova from the CIVIL PITCH film collection. The collection includes civil activism films; it is a unique project for Ukraine, where civil sector activists and filmmakers joined their efforts to create documentaries that would facilitate social change.

Nadiyka Vovk, an audience member, shared her thoughts about the film: “I keep thinking about the high-profile case of Serhiy Chaharov, a teenage activist who fights corruption. He was threatened, intimidated, someone threw a grenade into his yard. Meanwhile, the police delays the investigation of illegal actions against him. Unfortunately, the story of Serhiy Chaharov got lost in the general informational noise and became just one of hundreds of stories where activists are victims of attempts at their lives, where their rights are infringed, where they are ignored by law enforcement and the authorities. Luckily, there are people, artists, who ‘bring these stories to life,’ draw attention to them, demand justice, so the tragedy of Kateryna Gandziuk does not repeat.”

The Travelling Festival will take place in Dnipro until 6 November, so there will be many more good screenings. The schedule is available here.