Dixie Land Wins in Odessa
Had to bring this red-carpet-photo of producer Ilona Bicevska with protagonist Polina with the most amazing hat, and her parents, who are also in the film, the winning film, Dixie Land, Best Ukranian film, at the Odessa International Film Festival some days ago.
A well deserved award to those on the photo, and to the makers, Roman Bondarchuk and Darya Averchenko.
I attended the Ukranian premiere in Kiev at the festival DocuDays earlier this year and wrote:
…The film about jazz music performed by kids in a band in Kherson Ukraine, led by their old teacher, who founded the band just after WW2, picking up homeless children to give them the chance to develop their skills, gave them a life, simply – is a warm, so well made – Bondarchuk has indeed a documentary-eye – interpretation of a happy childhood, where kids have a good time developing their creative skills. As it is written in the catalogue: We all live once in Dixie Land – the country where politics, money and death do not exist at all…
The film will late August be at the MakeDox Festival in Skopje, Macedonia – and hopefully at many other festivals to come.
