Kateryna Gornostai: Maidan Everywhere

Synopsis from director: This film tells the story of the previous year, that for me began, when Maidan had started and maybe didn’t end yet. The whole year we have lived in the atmosphere of revolution, then war. Whatever you did – you saw this things on the background, you always mean them, although you live not even on a border of war, but deep in the rear. I want to remember this year, I want to keep the memory of all the people who surrounded me. The year of Maidan, the year marked by war and peace…

And the director does so in a film that is impressionistic in style, a bit difficult to grap when it comes to montage principles, but it lives through its obvious presence in situations, through the joy and enthusiasm that comes from the screen. A fine framed location is the Red Square in Moscow: the young woman unfolds at the end of the film the Ukranian flag, has to pack it away, when the police arrives, she does so with a smile and whispers “Maidan is Everywhere”, as she said in the beginning as well… There are some great scenes from private appartments, where the youngsters live, and from the countryside, I would have loved to have more of that. Maybe a small fatigue is coming to me now after many Maidan-films.

Ukraine, 2015, 36 mins.

The film won the Andriy Matrosov Award from the DocuDays Organization Committee at the DocuDays UA 2015. Motivation: For the victorious spirit of freedom.

PS. Words about Andriy Matrosov from the website of the festival: Andriy Matrosov was an unusual person. Everything he did, he did with much creation and love. In his incomplete 42 years of life, Andriy had time to become photoartist, cameraman, journalist, human rights activist, the head of journalist association “South”, film producer and producer of Docudays UA festival. And the main thing – he was a man who lived with an open heart, who put all his forces into good and useful deeds.

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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