MOMENTS FROM DOCUDAYS

Today is the last day of the documentary festival Docudays in Ukraine and I’m back again in this little safe haven in the outskirts of the world, aka Denmark.

Here are a few of many remarkable moments:

I. During my visit last year, I had a meeting with a film director, who had lived in France for quite many years but decided to move back after the full-scale invasion. Her documentary project was about her personal, existential dilemma: She felt the obligation to join the army but did not know if she dared. This year we met at a festival cocktail party. ‘Do you remember me from last year’? ‘Yes’. ‘I joined the army’. What can you say? I smiled, gave her a hug and we talked.

II.The same evening, I met a young man, who had already been in the army for a couple of years. I listened to his experiences.The next day I held a so-called Master Class and among the clips I showed was a scene from Olha Zhurba’s masterpiece SONGS OF SLOW BURNING EARTH. The scene with a crying truck driver who rescues kids from areas under Russian attack. At the end of my talk, it was time for questions and comments. The guy from last night got up: ‘That driver is a member of my unit’.

III. My talk was held in Cinema 42, located in a cellar. In the middle of the talk my Air Alert App, that the organizers urge you to download, goes off. Worried, I asked if we needed to go to the shelter. The whole audience smiled slightly indulgently at me: ‘Mikael, we ARE in the shelter’. Then we continued.

It’s a very different experience to be at Docudays. First and foremost, because of the vital importance and intensity of the meetings with the film people. Secondly because every time I was alone with no one to distract me, I remembered that it is actually a possibility to have a bomb on your head at any moment. I was there for 4 days; the Ukrainians have lived with it for 4 years. Now longer than WWI lasted. And that is if you don’t include the invasion of Crimea.Thirdly because it is so incredibly well organized. Also, it seems to be a criterion for joining the staff, that you are warmhearted and caring for your guests. Finally, the omnipresent Ukrainian black humor: When the Air Alert App calls off the alarm, the final sentence is ‘May the Force be with you’. Film connoisseurs will recognize the line by Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars. And who do you think speaks the line in the app? Ewan McGregor, of course.

To those I met from the team of the Docu/Pro section at Docudays, Darya Bassel, Viktoria Khomenko, Marharyta Pedchenko, Roman Bondarchuk, Dar’ya Averchenko, Sasha Kravchenko, Mariia Ponomarova: Hope to see you all under different circumstances next year!