Film Selection
Gogol Doc
Gogol Doc is a metaphorical construction of the Tower of Babel, which symbolises the alliance of people for the sake of one global dream. In this case, a dream is to open and run the 10th GOGOLFEST Festival of Art in Kyiv, Ukraine. The festival has practically no state financial support. The creative society, although seemingly aimed at creation, is not always capable of dialogue with itself. There is the problem of whether the festival will exist, or whether it will collapse like a dream of the Tower of Babel. Gogol Doc tells how art is created; it shows the backstage and the theatre's daily life. It also shows the crisis of creativity and raises questions... Every person takes part in creation, and the task of this film is to inspire people to self-realisation in art.
Alisa Pavlovskaya was born in 1987 in Yaroslavl, Russia. She studied at Boris Yukhananov’s studio of Individual Directing and graduated from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) as a camera operator.
Before Father Gets Back / Sanam Mama Dabrundeba
In a darkened classroom, the white cracked walls serve as a movie screen. We are in a remote mountain village of Georgia. The light from the projector breaks the darkness: the kids' first cinematic experience is about to begin. Among them are Iman and Eva, two Muslim girls for whom the experience becomes a turning point and inspires them to take the camera and start filming their daily lives. The girls are growing up in a valley infested by radicalism, where most people are living in a constant fear of their relatives sacrificing their lives in the name of God.
The film is nominated for 'Rights Now!' Award
Mari Gulbiani is a Georgian film director and screenplay writer. After finishing her education in Philology (1989-1994) at the Tbilisi State University, she studied Film Directing at the Theatre and Film State University from 2001 to 2006. She then fine-tuned her experience at the Parisian film school Ateliers Varan from 2006 until 2010 to become a fully-fledged documentary film director. She has worked in the culture department of the Georgian public TV station (TV1) and in the program department of TV9. She founded the producing company Midifilm in 2007. From 2013, she worked for the Noosfera Foundation and in the program department of the documentary film festival CineDoc Tbilisi. She also worked for CineDoc Young as a section coordinator. In 2012, she coordinated the EFA Young Audience Award in Tbilisi.
When Lambs become Lions
In a Kenyan town bordering a wildlife conservation area, two men try to hold onto their increasingly fragile status quo. A small-time ivory dealer fights to stay on top while forces mobilise to destroy his trade. When he turns to his younger cousin, a conflicted wildlife ranger who hasn’t been paid in months, they both see a possible lifeline. The plummeting elephant population in Africa has captured the attention of the world. And as the government cracks down, the poachers face their own existential crisis. For them, conservationists are not only winning their campaign to value the life of an elephant over its ivory, but over the life of humans as well. Who are these hunters who will risk death, arrest and the moral outrage of the world to provide for their families?
The film is nominated for 'Rights Now!' Award
Born to an Australian mother and an Indian father, Jon Kasbe spent most of his childhood traveling extensively. Growing up in this environment instilled in him a deep curiosity and desire to explore the world. He soon found documentary filmmaking to be a way to immerse himself in his travels and share discoveries with others. At age 10, he bought his first camera in order to interview children in war-torn Serbia, where his parents were volunteering. Now at 27, his short films have been screened around the world, garnering an Emmy award, two Emmy nominations, and recognition from the Webbys, SXSW, Hot Docs, Vimeo Staff Picks, and the White House News Photographers Association. When Lambs Become Lions, which he filmed, directed and produced, is his feature-length film debut.
White Mama / Белая мама
Аlina Makarova is a mother of six children, five of her own and one adopted. Her ex-husband is from Ethiopia, which is why all her own children are of mixed origin. Only her adopted son is white, but he is psychologically unstable. Alina’s older children realise what complications the adoption might bring, and are afraid that there won’t be enough room, time and love for everyone. But she convinces them that it’s the right thing. The new boy really turns their life into trouble. Alina shows miraculous patience and pedagogical talents. Her children become her allies in raising the new son. This film is an epic panorama of a fight for love, an ode to motherhood.
Evgeniya Ostanina graduated from Rostov University, where she received PhD and afterwards lectured in philosophy. She later participated as an editor in several famous Russian documentary projects, including The Term (2014), Kiev/Moscow (2015), How Big Is the Galaxy? (2018), as well as the web documentary project Reality (2013). White Mama is her full-length directorial debut.
Zosya Rodkevich was born in Moscow, where she graduated from Marina Razbezhkina’s School of Documentary Filmmaking. She was acclaimed for her documentary Winter Go Away (2012). Zosya’s first full-length film My Friend Boris Nemtsov (2016) was named Best Documentary at the Kraków film festival.
The Way to the Mountains / La strada per le montagne
Milan. A few of the objects belonging to the list of goods that my family carried out of the Soviet Union in 1957, while emigrating to Italy, and a photograph from 1919 portraying the house where my grandfather was born. In the village of Yamna, in Ukraine, a wide area, patrolled by armed guardians. Inside the few remaining buildings of an abandoned sanatorium and an old wooden house, which looks exactly like the one my family owned. The further the inquiry proceeds, the more the inhabitants of the village will be entangled in the voids of their collective memory. The help of two of them will be crucial: Petro, the oldest partisan in the area, and Yura, the taxi-driver. The confessions will shed light on the fate of the house, just before the whole village will be buried again in its silent secrets.
Micol Roubini was born in Milan in 1982. She graduated in painting at the Fine Arts Academy in Milan, and in audio technology at Irmus, Scuola Civica, Milan. Since 2006 she has been working as artist, mainly with video, sound and multimedia installations that have been shown in solo and collective exhibitions in Italy and abroad. Her work deals with site-specific projects, often related to the notion of memory, to the analysis of marginal territories and to time flow. In 2017 she founded l’Altauro, for the production of independent cinematographic work. The Way to the Mountains is her first feature documentary film.
Black Cleaning
Barricades and tents were still on the Maidan several months after the protesters’ victory. Some said the revolution wasn’t over yet, and the centre of Kyiv had to remain occupied. The others thought it was time to start working in regions and governmental offices. In August 2014, municipal services and participants of the Maidan gathered to clean it up. The atmosphere reminded me of the classic Ukrainian novel The Black Council by Panteleimon Kulish.
Piotr Armianovski was born in 1985 in Donetsk, Ukraine. He is a film director and performer. He has studied in Donetsk, Kyiv, Moscow and Lviv. His teachers include Klim, Marina Abramović and Janusz Bałdyga. His documentaries have been screened at festivals in Ukraine, Estonia, Germany, France and the United States. He’s based in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Illusion
This absurd story began in Kherson, Ukraine. Young people create a cultural centre to protect the oldest cinema in the city. But the land at the centre of this city attracts officials and deputies; they want to free up the territory and start a war against the cultural activists.
Leonid Yezhurov was born and lives in Kherson, Ukraine. He is a civil and culture activist. In 2016, he created a culture centre together with his friends on the premises of an old film theatre. In 2018, he participated in Indie Lab, a laboratory for young documentary filmmakers, and created a tragicomedy out of the chronicles of the culture centre to protect the film theatre and fight Soviet habits.
Show time & place
Vinnytsya,
st. Theatrical, 15
