In two days, the audience will be shown 15 films by Ukrainian and foreign filmmakers.
It will take place on April 22 and 23 in the fireplace hall of the Kyiv fortress IX International Historical Film Festival “Out of Time”. Throughout the years of the festival’s existence, since 2014, the national historical and architectural museum “Kyiv Fortress” has been co-organizing this educational and artistic event.
The International Historical Film Festival “Out of Time” is one of the few historical film festivals in Europe. There are similar festivals in Romania, France, Belgium and Croatia. The director of the festival is Inna Goncharova. Photo: Viktor Kozhevnikov
“This is the first festival during the war. The only time we did not hold it was in 2022. Even during quarantines, screenings were postponed, she said festival director Inna Goncharova. — We are holding it again on our own, no one is helping us financially.
This year, the festival will be held in another hall, in the 2nd caponir. Now the museum is open only on weekends, so we arrange film screenings not for three days, as usual, but only for two days. There is a museum in the premises. Therefore, the audience who come to the festival will be able to watch both films and the exposition of the museum of the history of fortification on the territory of Ukraine.”
According to her, right now historical cinema has acquired a new color and an even more relevant meaning, because every day we live is a story, and we are all witnesses and direct participants of historical events.
“Historical films are mostly made by enthusiasts,” notes Inna Goncharova. —
Historical games are very expensive. And documentaries are not easy to shoot, because there are shortcomings. which can be hidden in a feature film with beautiful shots or music, in a documentary hide something else. There must be a quality script. In recent decades, the genre of historical cinema has not developed much. Previously, a lot of filming was done on order for regional television — they ordered tapes about the regions, prominent personalities. Now even that is gone.”
Film director, screenwriter, writer and teacher Ivan Kanivets is the constant chairman of the jury of the festival.
WHAT THE FILMS ARE ABOUT
This year, the program will show 15 films by Ukrainian and foreign filmmakers. All films presented at the festival are from recent years, shot mainly from 2021 to 2023.
Many directors are regular participants of the festival. So, “Ivan Chendey’s Light and Shadows” Vyacheslav Bigun (2022) is a film-journey along the paths of the screenwriter of the legendary film “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”. Why does Paradzhanov choose Ivan Chendey to film Kotsyubinsky’s novel? Archival findings and a trip to the Carpathians shed new light on the role of the centenarian. His other film, “Star. A thought about law” (2023) is a film portrait of Zoryslava Romovska, a leading Ukrainian jurist and author of the Family Code project. By the way, the director himself is a lawyer. And his short film “one” (2021) tells about the parents and the post-war fate of a Transcarpathian family.
In the center “Underground Romance” (2021) Anna Sherstyuk – love triangle, opera singer Raisa, underground Ivan and special services officer Alfred. Raisa is faced with a difficult choice: betray Ivan to the Germans and save herself, or sacrifice her career as a singer for the sake of love and doom herself to death.
“High school graduation” Alisa Syzykh tells about a generation that is at a historical turning point of instability in another period of change. “Graduation” is an allegory for people, a new generation that will live in this new World.
Psychological drama “In the bomb shelter” Serhiy Shevchyk introduces the viewer to the women of Ukraine, who were united by the war and the pain of loss. The place where the stories of the film’s heroines intersected was a bomb shelter that would protect them from the missiles of the troubled sky, or forever keep the secrets they shared.
“Butterfly Dance” Maria Felenko moves to the beginning of the 20th century, when the daughter of the Russian scientist Olena Shovgenov (and later the famous Ukrainian poet Olena Teliga) finds herself in Kyiv with her family, where the girl falls in love for the first time, but is forced to leave the city and her lover due to the Bolshevik regime. In Czechoslovakia, she falls in love with the Cossack Mykhailo Teliga, with whom she later moves to Warsaw. But the desire to return to her beloved Kyiv does not leave Elena.
Within the framework of the festival, two films produced in the USA will be shown, which have already gained publicity and success in the world, but this will be their first showing in Ukraine. We are talking about films directed by Yevgeny Afineevsky. For the picture “Crying from Syria” about the civil war in Syria, the director received the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards in New York. And as a film director “Francesco”which chronicles the life and teachings of Pope Francis, won the Kinéo Prize in the Vatican Gardens for the film’s “promotion of social, humanitarian and environmental issues in cinema”.
At the end of the festival, on April 23 at 6 p.m., the first open screening of a joint film produced by Ukraine and the USA will take place “Freedom in Fire” (director Yevhenii Afineevskyi), which is a sequel to the film “Winter on Fire”. It tells about Ukraine and Ukrainians at the beginning of the full-scale phase of the war, starting from February 24, 2022. The world premiere of the film took place at the 79th Venice International Film Festival.
SCHEDULE OF THE FESTIVAL
April 22, Saturday
11.30 Butterfly dance. Short documentary. Ukraine. Directed by Maria Felenko, Ukraine, 17 minutes
11.50 Walnut. Full-length documentary. Ukraine. Directed by Viktor Bulyga, 82 minutes
13.20 Underground novel. Short documentary-game. Ukraine. Directed by Anna Sherstyuk, Ukraine, 21 minutes
13.45 Cavaliers. Short documentary. Ukraine. Directed by Viktor Bulyga, 14 minutes
14.00 “High school graduation. Full-length documentary. Ukraine-Germany. Directed by Alisa Syzykh, 116 minutes
16.00 In the bomb shelter. Short documentary-game. Ukraine. Directed by Serhiy Shevchyk, 6 minutes
16.10 Maria. Full-length documentary. Directed by Maria Yaremchuk, 70 minutes
17.40 Eden. Short documentary. Ukraine. Directed by Vyacheslav Bihun, 15 minutes
18.00 Cries from Syria (non-competition). USA. Directed by Yevhenii Afineevskyi, 111 minutes — the first screening in Ukraine
April 23, Sunday
11.00 Ivan Chandey’s Light and Shadows. Full-length documentary. Ukraine. Directed by Vyacheslav Bihun, 74 minutes
12.30 Difficult letters. Short documentary. Ukraine. Directed by Maria Yaremchuk, 20 minutes
13.00 Ordinary racism. Full-length documentary. Ukraine. Directed by Ihor Poddubny, 51 minutes
14.00 Star. A thought about law. Full-length documentary. Directed by Vyacheslav Bigun, 80 minutes
15.30 Franshesko (Francesco) (out of competition). USA 116 minutes. Directed by Yevhenii Afineevskyi, 116 minutes — the first screening in Ukraine
18.00 Freedom in fire. The first open screening in Ukraine. Full-length documentary. Ukraine-USA, 120 minutes
Visiting the festival — with entrance tickets to the museum (60 hryvnias). In addition to screenings of festival films, you can view the exposition of the museum of the history of fortification on the territory of Ukraine.
Maria Kataeva“Evening Kyiv”
