Docudays UA 13th Edition
The festival poster is to be seen around Kiev – the bears are there and not only ”inside us”, read elsewhere what the creative organizers want to communicate with that.
A much more direct communication is to be found in the catalogue that was given to me yesterday in the busy headquarter of the Cinema House, that hosts the opening ceremony tonight followed by Vitaly Manski’s film ”Under the Sun” from North Korea. The festival runs until 1st of April.
Here are a couple of (edited) citations from the catalogue:
Alla Tyutyunnyk, member of the Organizing Committee – ”Beyond Illusion is the topic… We selected it because, after the Maidan, the feeling that humanity is currently struggling through illusions towards some new civilizational order is getting ever stronger. The illusion of the stability in a world order that was agreed upon by strong democratic countries is collapsing. The world’s illusion of Ukraine’s weakness and inability of Ukrainians to self-organize has been dispelled. The illusions about relying on the international institutions in the UN-system, created to secure the world order without war and aggression and to protect human rights, have been dispelled…”
Carl Gershman, president of the National Endownmen for Democracy – ”I applaud the way Docudays UA has defined the basic issue confronting Ukraine as the need to move beyond false hopes and to base its future strategy on a hard-headed assessment of real threats, challenges, and opportunities…Yes, it is an illusion that Russia under Putin will ever accept a democratic and independent Ukraine. But if Ukraine can prevail against Russian aggression, it will be the end of Putin and his delusional ideas of Russian chauvinism and revanchism…”
Inna Pidluska, International Renaissance Foundation – ”For 13 years Docudays UA has been telling the stories of people, who challenged the unjust system… documentaries have given courage and the will to fight for freedom and resist evil. This is the generation of a new Ukraine that we seek… Docudays UA is a source of inspiration…”