British Programme at Docudays UA Festival and “The Guardian Goes Ukraine” Award Recipients
Starting 25 March and running through 1 April 2016, the British Council will take part in the annual Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. The Council will be screening films from British directors and will also announce the winners of “The Guardian Goes Ukraine” short doc competition.
British films featured during the non-competition phrase at Docudays UA include:
A "Syrian Love Story", 2015. Comrades and lovers Amer and Raghda met in a Syrian prison cell 15 years ago. When McAllister first meets their family in 2009, Raghda is back in prison leaving Amer to look after their 4 boys alone; but as the ‘Arab Spring’ sweeps the region, the family’s fate shifts irrevocably. Filmed over 5 years, the film charts their incredible odyssey to political freedom. For Raghda and Amer, it is a journey of hope, dreams, and despair: for the revolution, their homeland, and each other.
Saturday, March 26, 8:00 pm
Dom Kino, 6 Saksahanskoho St.
“How To Change the World” (2015) In 1971, a group of friends sail into a nuclear test zone and their protest captures the world’s imagination, giving birth to Greenpeace and defining the modern green movement. Media-savvy from the beginning, these pioneers captured their seat-of-the-pants activist adventures on 16mm film. From this vivid archive Jerry Rothwell has created a thrilling, sometimes terrifying film. When youthful energy comes up against the complexities of a growing organization, and idealism meets compromise, the group finds their battle to save the planet also forces them to fight each other.
Monday, March 28, 9:00 p.m.
Kinopanorama, 19 Shota Rustaveli Street
“Bitter Lake” (2014) Bitter Lake is a new, adventurous, and epic film by Adam Curtis that explains why the big stories politicians tell us have become so simplified that we can’t really see the world any longer. The narrative goes all over the world, America, Britain, Russia and Saudi Arabia – but the country at the heart of it is Afghanistan, because Afghanistan is the place that has confronted our politicians with the terrible truth – that they cannot understand what is going on any longer.
Tuesday, March 29, 5:00 p.m.
Kyiv Cinema, 19 Velika Vasylkivska Street Wednesday,
“The Show of Shows” (2015) Roll Up, Roll Up for an unforgettable experience! This film tells the story of itinerant circus performers, cabaret acts, and vaudeville and fairground attractions. In this film, rarities and never-before seen footage of fairgrounds, circus entertainment, freak shows, variety performances, music hall, and seaside entertainment are chronicled from the 19th and 20th century. We will see the early shows that wowed the world, and home movies of some of the greatest circus families. The film is accompanied by an epic new score by Georg Holm and Orri Páll Dýrason of Sigur Rós.
Kyiv Cinema, 19 Velika Vasylkivska Street
For the Festival’s Competition Phase, Great Britain is putting forward the following films:
"Perfection is Forever", 2015. A tree is what it is, complete in its own being. Human beings, on the other hand, always aspire to become something more, doing their best to hold back time in pursuit of eternal love, youth, and beauty. In Hollywood, two lost souls seek to become heroes under the shade of a lonely palm tree.
Sunday, March 27, 3 p.m.
Dom Kino, 6 Saksahanskoho Street
Monday, March 28, 12:00 p.m.
Kyiv Cinema, Cinematika
19 Velika Vasylkivska Street
"Women in Sink", 2015. In a little hair salon in Haifa, Israel, owned by a Christian Arab, the director installs a mini-film set over the washbasin. As she washes their hair, she converses candidly with the salon’s clients, who are Arab and Jewish, on topics ranging from politics to love. What emerges from these conversations is an honest and nuanced portrayal of contemporary Israel.
Wednesday, March 30, 3:00 p.m.
Dom Kino, 6 Saksahanskoho Street
Thursday, March 31, 12:00 p.m.
Kyiv Cinema, Cinematika
19 Velika Vasylkivska Street
We are also pleased to make these noted British directors available for meetings during their Docudays screenings.
Jerry Rothwell is a documentary filmmaker whose work includes the award-winning feature documentaries Donor Unknown, Town of Runners, Heavy Load, and Deep Water. In 2012 Jerry won a prestigious Royal Television Award for his directing work on Donor Unknown and Town of Runners. His next film will be Sour Grapes for Netflix and Arte co-directed with Reuben Atlas. At Met Film Production, he has executive-produced and worked as an editor on numerous feature docs, including Dylan Williams’ Men Who Swim and Sarah Gavron’s The Village at the End of the World.
During the Screening of “How to Change the World”
Saturday, March 26, 8:00 p.m.
Dom Kino, 6 Saksahanskoho Street
Kinopanorama, 19 Shota Rustaveli Street
Mara Trifu is a Romanian freelance documentary director and cinematographer. She completed her MA at the National Film and Television School, in the UK, prior to which she participated in numerous international film workshops: the Sarajevo Talent Campus, Istanbul Express, the Aristoteles Workshop, the Berlinale Talent Campus, Docstories Black Sea, and Docs in Thessaloniki.
During the screening of Perfection is Forever.
Sunday, March 27, 3 p.m.
Dom Kino, 6 Saksahanskoho Street
Monday, March 28, 12:00 p.m. and also
Kyiv Cinema, Cinematika
19 Velika Vasylkivska Street
Iris Zaki moved to London in 2009 to study documentary filmmaking after several years in the Israeli media industry. In 2013 she commenced a practice-based PhD in documentary practice under the supervision of the award-winning director Marc Isaacs, which explores her innovative filmmaking technique, focusing on closed communities.
During the screening of Women in Sink
Wednesday, March 30, 3:00 p.m.
Dom Kino, 6 Saksahanskoho Street
Thursday, March 31, 12:00 p.m.
Kyiv Cinema, Cinematika
19 Velika Vasylkivska Street
The British Council Ukraine will wrap up its “The Guardian Goes Ukraine” Competition during the Docudays UA Festival. On March 23 and 24, the six Ukrainian documentary finalists will undergo training sessions in Kyiv in “pitching a project” led by noted British film advisor, Christine Bardsley.
Screenings of all the Guardian Docs finalists’ films will start at 1:30 pm on 31 March. At 3:00 pm all six finalists will then pitch their projects in open session before our expert panel. The panel’s job will be to select three winning projects, which will be announced that evening at 7:00 p.m. at the Festival Closing. First Prize awarded by the jury is 5,000 GBP, with an additional two prizes of 3,000 GBP each going to the other two finalists. The grants are awarded to assist the director in the production of an original documentary film.
From all the project applications received, six original Ukrainian productions were shortlisted by “The Guardian Goes Ukraine” panel: Alisa Kovalenko – “Alina”; Glib Zhavoronkov – “The Ferry Crossing”; Svitlana Shymko – “Leninopad”; Victor Demidov – “Furious”; Semen Mozgovyi – “History of the Winter Garden”; Anna Akulevich – “Jamala”.
Winners will be determined by our expert panel, made up of Christine Bardsely, film advisor for the British Council UK; Charlie Phillips, Head of Documentary Acquisition and Production at the Guardian; Serhiy Bukovsky, Ukrainian Documentary Filmmaker; and Roman Bondarchuk, artistic director for Docudays UA.
On March 30 at 6:00 p.m. in Dom Kino’s “Green Hall” (2nd floor) during our DOCU/KLAS Worshop will be outlining our new DOCWORKS UA-UK programme for Ukrainian and British documentary film directors, working jointly with Docudays UA and the Sheffield Doc/Fest.
Docudays UA - Ukraine’s sole documentary film festival focused on human rights issues – is held annually in Kyiv during the last week of March. The 2015 Docudays Festival drew an audience of more than 44,000. Then from October until December, the Festival then travels throughout Ukraine, showing the best documentaries from that year’s event. The 2014 Docudays UA “Roadshow” travelled to 231 cities and towns in 23 of Ukraine’s Administrative centers (Oblasts).
You can follow us at the official festival website www.docudays.org.ua, or on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/DocudaysUA
The Guardian Documentary was founded in 2014 as a resource to encourage the production of documentary film, and is in constant search for original stories that work to expand understanding of relevant social issues and events.