While the Ukrainian economy is in recession and its army prepares for war, Ukrainian culture is taking a step forward. A feature film by Ukrainian film director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy made it to the official screening list of Cannes Film Festival that will be held on May 14-25.
The movie was also nominated for the festival’s Golden Camera Award.
“The Tribe” (“Plemya”) is Slaboshpytsky’s second movie about deaf people and his debut in producing feature films. The first one, a short film “Deafness” (2010), made it to the competition list of Berlinale festival.
“The Tribe” focuses on the lives of deaf teenagers in a special boarding school. The strongest among them call themselves “the tribe” and Serhiy, film’s main character, is desperate to join their circle.
Slaboshpytskiy came up with the idea for the movie back in 2000. He didn’t get to shoot it as another director bought the movie script that Slaboshpytskiy found. “I got that idea, brought it to State Cinema Department, but they offered the writer to sell it to the other director and made their own film,” the director says.
Now Slaboshpytskiy has finally produced his own feature movie based on the story he found 14 years ago.
“And it is already a success, because Cannes is the best that can happen to a film,” he smiles.
This time, he wrote the script himself. All the actors in the movie were not professional actors and were picked among deaf people.
“First we picked charismatic personalities and then tried to think of characters suitable for them,” the director explained.
However, Slaboshpytskiy ensures that “The Tribe” is not about specific problems of the deaf community, but rather about humanity, “shot not in Russian, Ukrainian or English, but in pantomime,” he says.
The shortlisting of the film for a Cannes award created a stir, but even with the increased international interest for Ukraine, Slaboshpytskiy says is not sure that the film has realistic chances of winning.
“All the films there are very strong, so it is hard to predict anything,” he says. “And at the festivals of such level country of origin as well as a movie’s touchy subject is not a reason to pick a film.”
Slaboshpytskiy’s movie won’t be the only Ukrainian film in Cannes this year. Ukrainian documentary movie “Maidan” by famous Ukrainian director Serhiy Loznytsa has also made it to the Cannes Special Screening. Loznytsa’s two feature films were presented in Cannes contest program in previous years. “Maidan” features the events of EuroMaidan Revolution.
Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko can be reached at [email protected]
