aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] ASN film screenings list (including severalUkraine-themed)


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Dear Colleagues,

Further to my earlier announcement, below please find the lineup of film screenings at the upcoming ASN convention.

>From the convention program:

Ukraine will be featured in four films: HOLOCAUST BY BULLETS depicts the project spearheaded by a French priest, Patrick Desbois, of identifying hundreds of Holocaust mass graves in Ukraine; NO. 4 STREET OF OUR LADY recounts the extraordinary story of a Polish woman, in a Polish-Ukrainian town, who sheltered 16 Jews during the war; THE ENGLISH SURGEON tells the “agonizingly human” story of a British brain surgeon who has been operating in Ukraine for the past 15 years; LIGHT FROM THE EAST is about history catching up with the present, when an American theatre, in Ukraine to recreate a play written during turbulent times, found itself experiencing the failed putsch of 1991.

Best wishes,

Vitaly Chernetsky

--------------------------------------------------------

ASN 2010 FILM LINEUP

Mass violence, memory, post-conflict reconstruction, reconciliation, and national identity are among the themes highlighted in the dozen recent documentaries that will screen during the ASN 2010 World Convention at Columbia University (International Affairs Building, 420 W. 118th St., New York). Four films deal with events in, or people from, the Caucasus: RUSSIAN STORIES, the new film by Andrei Nekrasov (Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File), which world premiered at Sundance 2010, is an incisive look at civilian casualties in Ossetia during the 2008 war in Georgia; THE RUSSIAN WAR looks at conflicting memories in the failed uprising of Georgian POWs on the island of Texel, Netherlands, in 1945; ABSENCE OF WILL and MY ENEMY, MY FRIEND are two documentaries produced by the British NGO Conciliation Resources on the conflicts in Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh seen from the point of view of civilians. In a similar spirit, UNTOLD STORIES is about civilians who risked ostracization, during the Yugoslav wars, by helping people of other nationalities.

Ukraine will also be featured in four films: HOLOCAUST BY BULLETS depicts the project spearheaded by a French priest, Patrick Desbois, of identifying hundreds of Holocaust mass graves in Ukraine; NO. 4 STREET OF OUR LADY recounts the extraordinary story of a Polish woman, in a Polish-Ukrainian town, who sheltered 16 Jews during the war; THE ENGLISH SURGEON tells the “agonizingly human” story of a British brain surgeon who has been operating in Ukraine for the past 15 years; LIGHT FROM THE EAST is about history catching up with the present, when an American theatre, in Ukraine to recreate a play written during turbulent times, found itself experiencing the failed putsch of 1991. National identity is explored in two films: QUESTIONS NATIONALES, a rare comparative look at the power of national identity in the West, with a focus on Quebec, Scotland and Catalonia, and KOMI-PERMIAK AUTUMN, a reflection on the power of assimilation among the Komi people of Russia. Finally, the short film MILITANCY AND VIOLENCE IN WEST AFRICA will be discussed by an entire panel of British scholars.

Entrance to the screenings is free for non-convention participants.

FRIDAY APRIL 16, 11.20 AM - 1.20 PM

FILM 3 — ABSENCE OF WILL

Georgia, 2009 (53 minutes)

Directed by Mamuka Kuparadze < mamuka_re@yahoo.com >

Contact: Laurence Broers, Conciliation Resources, London, UK < lbroers@c-r.org >

(in Georgian, with English subtitles)

ROOM 1219

Vakho and Teo are young university graduates from Tbilisi who grew up in the shadow of the war that tore Georgia apart in the early 1990s. Like everyone of their generation, their lives have been shaped by the legacy of those violent times. In 2008, Vakho and Teo set out to understand what caused the war in Abkhazia and why the two sides in the conflict are still unable to resolve their differences after fifteen years of peace talks. Halfway through filming, violence erupted again over South Ossetia, making the search for answers even more personal and urgent for Vakho and Teo. “Absence of Will” documents the tough questions and painful truths the young men faced in their intellectual and emotional journey to a better future. The film features interviews with several key figures associated with the 1993-1994 war in Abkhazia, including former Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze.

FILM 4 — UNTOLD STORIES

Osijek, Croatia, 2009 (52 minutes)

Directed by Brankica Drašković

Contact: Sasha Poucki < spoucki@nicosa.com >

(in Croatian/Serbian/Bosnian, with English subtitles)

ROOM 1201

Part of the project “Dealing with the Past through Examples of Good”, the film explores how some individuals risked ostracization and even their lives by helping people of other ethnic backgrounds during the Yugoslav War in the early 1990s. It reveals how, despite the horrors of the war and the many atrocities committed, there were people who had the courage to stand by those considered by many to be “the enemy”. Over a decade after Dayton and the restoration of peace to the region, the consequences of the war are still apparent. These pose an obstacle to the reconstruction of multi-ethnic communities among people still badly scarred by their wartime experiences. The filmmakers hope that the stories told in this film — from Kosovo, Mostar, Sarajevo, Livno, Mrkopalj/Drežnica and Knin — can provide a healthy base on which to build a progressive and functional multi-ethnic society.

FRIDAY APRIL 16, 2.50 PM – 4.50 PM

FILM 5 — RUSSIAN LESSONS

Georgia, Germany, Norway, 2009 (110 minutes)

Directed by Andrei Nekrasov, co-director Olga Konskaya

Contact: Oddleiv Vik < oddleiv@kudosfamily.com >

(in Russian/Georgian, with English subtitles)

ROOM 1219

A  “formidable” documentary that “dignifies the struggles of powerless people and holds a sobering mirror up to a superpower and its media” (Sundance Film Festival), “Russian Lessons” vigorously enquires into the violent conflicts in the Caucasus that have pitted Russia against Georgia over the troubled regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. While exploring the complex history of the region and cultural assumptions about internecine ethnic conflicts, the filmmakers take their lens into rarely seen conflict zones, where evidence of Russian violence is both undeniable and devastating. The Russia that emerges through this passionate investigation is one that is willing to wage secret wars and “manufacture” conflicts and media reports in a drive to consolidate power.

FILM 6 — LIGHT FROM THE EAST

US, 2008 (68 minutes)

Directed by Amy Grappell

Contact: Amy Grappell < amylu@earthlink.net >

(in English/Ukrainian/Russian, with English subtitles)

ROOM 1201

In 1991, a troupe of young American actors from La Mama Theater in NY travels to the USSR to participate in the first American/Ukrainian cultural exchange theater project in Soviet history.  The play they are to perform is based on the life of Les Kurbas, a revolutionary theatre director who was murdered in one of Stalin’s purges.  Two weeks into their trip, Gorbachev is kidnapped, the Kremlin is overthrown by a military coup and the entire USSR is plunged into volatile uncertainty.  As rehearsals progress, the play ironically begins to mirror action in the streets: Kurbas and his company struggled to make art during the revolution that ushered in communism, while the international troupe performs the life of Kurbas as communism collapses. Described as an “illuminating time-capsule documentary” (Variety), the film offers a timely philosophical inquiry into the meaning of freedom and the transition from communism to democracy.

FRIDAY APRIL 16, 5.10 PM – 7.10 PM

FILM 7 — THE HOLOCAUST BY BULLETS: THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY [SHOAH PAR BALLES: L’HISTOIRE OUBLIÉE]

France, 2008 (85 minutes)
Directed by Romain Icard

Contact: Patrice Bensimon, EHESS/Yahad-in Unum, Paris, France

< patbensimon@yahoo.fr >

(in French/Ukrainian, with English subtitles)

ROOM 1219

French priest Patrick Desbois is standing on a village street in Ukraine looking at two women walk by. “Go over there, quickly, and ask them,” Desbois says to his colleague Andrej Umansky. “Did you live here during the war?”. Umansky asks the women.
One of the women nods. “Did you see how the Jews were shot?”. The woman nods again. She is another eyewitness of the Holocaust in Ukraine. This has taken Father Desbois and his team one step further in their work: documenting the mass murder of Jews in this region. Some 1.5 million Jews were murdered here by the Nazis. Most were shot in mass executions. For the past eight years, Father Desbois has been traveling throughout Ukraine looking for men and women over the age of 70. His team has questioned almost 1000 people in more than 300 towns and villages and discovered hundreds of mass graves. The film documents this gruesome journey.

FILM 1 — MILITANCY AND VIOLENCE IN WEST AFRICA

US, 2009 (13 minutes)

Directed by Dodge Billingsley

Contact: Dodge Billingsley, Combat Films and Research, Utah, US

< dodge@combatfilms.com >

ROOM 1201

Despite their various differences, the countries of West Africa are confronted by a number of common security issues that challenge the region as a whole. Intimately connected to a colonial past and its lingering legacy, these issues revolve around religious and ethnic differences, as well as politics, economics and regional conflict more broadly. In the past forty years, intra-Islamic competition, ethnic conflicts, a push to control lucrative energy resources, and weak governments and elites with ambiguous attitudes towards conflict have combined with growing radicalism and militant violence to devastating effect.

SATURDAY APRIL 17, 11.20 AM - 1.20 PM

FILM 2 — MY ENEMY, MY FRIEND

Baku, Stepanakert, 2009 (30 minutes)

Directed by Levon Kalntar

Contact: Laurence Broers, Conciliation Resources, London, UK < lbroers@c-r.org >

(in Russian/Armenian/Azeri, with English subtitles)

ROOM 1219

"My Enemy, my Friend" tells the story of what happened to some of the thousands of people who were captured or taken hostage during and after the Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988-94). The film focuses on the experiences of Avaz Hasanov (Azerbaijan) and Albert Voskanyan (Nagorny-Karabakh), who spent several years working together on a joint commission on missing people. They speak with brutal honesty about the challenges and dilemmas of being involved in such sensitive and often heart-breaking work. We also hear extraordinary testimonies from soldiers and civilians helped by Avaz and Albert over the years.

FILM 8 — KOMI-PERMYAK AUTUMN

Estonia, 2009 (57 minutes)

Directed by Indrek Jääts, Maido Selgmäe

Contact: Indrek Jääts, Estonian National Museum, Tallinn < ijaats@gmail.com >

(in Russian/Komi/Estonian, with English subtitles)

ROOM 1201

This film explores issues of ethnic identity, assimilation and nationalities policy in contemporary Russia through the prism of the Komi-Permyak case. The Komi-Permyaks are the only Finno-Ugric group in Russia, constituting the majority in their ethnic autonomous unit during the Soviet era. Yet they voted for unification with the Perm Region in a 2003 referendum, thereby relinquishing their political autonomy. The documentary seeks to shed light on this vote. Through interviews and scenes from everyday life, it vividly chronicles the contemporary economic and cultural situation in the area, one of the poorest corners of European Russia, devoting particular attention to linguistic processes.

SATURDAY APRIL 17, 2.50 PM – 4.50 PM

FILM 9 — THE ENGLISH SURGEON

UK, 2007 (93 minutes)

Directed by Geoffrey Smith

Contact: Geoffrey Smith < geoffrey@eyelinefilms.co.uk >

(in English/Ukrainian/Russian, with English subtitles)

ROOM 1219

What is it like to have God-like surgical powers, yet to struggle against your own humanity? What is it like to try and save a life, and yet to fail? The film, described in reviews as “enthralling... agonizingly human” (NYT) and “deeply touching” (Variety), follows brain surgeon Henry Marsh on his latest mission to Ukraine. Compelled to help others, Henry has been going to Kyiv for over 15 years to help improve upon the medieval brain surgery he first witnessed there in 1992. But for all the satisfaction he gets from going, Henry also sees grossly misdiagnosed patients, children who will inevitably die and a lack of equipment and trained supporting staff. In some harrowing scenes, we feel Henry's frustration as he agonizes over who he can and can't save. A powerful story documenting the struggle to do good in a selfish and flawed world, the film has won numerous best documentary and audience awards internationally.

FILM 10 — THE RUSSIAN WAR

The Netherlands, 2009 (60 minutes)

Directed by Arnold van Bruggen, co-director Eefje Blankevoort

Contact: Arnold van Bruggen < arnold@prospektor.nl >

(in Dutch/Georgian, with English subtitles)

ROOM 1201

During World War II, 800 Georgian POWs were put to work by the Germans on the Dutch island of Texel. As liberation neared in April 1945, the prisoners were told that they were being sent to the Western Front to fight in the German army. They decided to resist, to "fight to the death". The decision would have far-reaching consequences: During the course of the uprising, the island was reduced to ashes and hundreds were killed — Georgian prisoners, German soldiers, but also many islanders. Through eyewitness testimonies, the film delves into the causes and course of this ‘Russian War’. It soon becomes clear that not everyone viewed the insurgents as heroes and anger still lingers among many islanders over their “rash” actions. Interviews are interspersed with beautiful nature shots on Texel — a peaceful place that was once the scene of an almost-forgotten tragedy.

SATURDAY APRIL 17, 5.10 PM – 7.10 PM

Film 11 — QUESTIONS NATIONALES

Québec, Canada, 2009 (92 minutes)

Directed by Jean-Pierre Roy, Roger Boire

Contact: Jean-Pierre Roy < Jmrjeanpierreroy@gmail.com >

(in French/English/Catalan, with English subtitles)

ROOM 1219

The film brings new perspective to the Quebec sovereignty issue. In particular, it addresses the question of why Quebec has yet to achieve independence forty years after the movement began, when so many other countries have succeeded in achieving this goal during the same period. To answer this question, the film considers the cases of the Scots (UK) and the Catalans (Spain), who, like the Québécois, have had to think hard about the advantages or risks of independence over autonomy and to grapple with the ‘unknowns’ of possible separation. The latter course might exact a heavy price in terms of economic, political and legal consequences, but can the status quo ensure the survival of their languages and cultures? After premiering last August at Montréal’s “Festival des films du monde”, the film is now on a European tour, with screenings in Barcelona, Brussels, Paris, Lausanne, València, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

FILM 12 — NO. 4 STREET OF OUR LADY

US, 2009 (95 minutes)

Directed by Barbara Bird, Judy Maltz and Richie Sherman

Contact: Judy Maltz < jmaltz@psu.edu >

(in English/Polish/Ukrainian/Hebrew, with English subtitles)

ROOM 1201

This award-winning film, already screened at numerous film festivals, universities and community centers across the US, tells the remarkable yet little-known story of Francisca Halamajowa, a Polish-Catholic woman who rescued 16 of her Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust in Sokal, a small town in Eastern Poland (now part of Ukraine). Only about 30 of Sokal’s 6,000 Jews survived the war — half of them rescued by Halamajowa. For close to two years, she hid and cared for her Jewish neighbors in her tiny home, right under the noses of German troops camped on her property as well as hostile neighbors. The film draws on excerpts from a diary kept by one of the survivors, whose granddaughter is one of the filmmakers, and incorporates testimonies from other Jews saved by Halamajowa, as well as her descendants and former neighbors, as they reconnect on a trip back to Sokal.



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