While nowadays Ukrainians have to deal with their rather unflattering image created by Russian media, the country’s portrayal in Hollywood movies actually is not much better.
Ukrainian director Andriy Pryymachenko, 24, has created a 30-minute video compilation of all movies mentioning Ukraine in last half a century. It turned out that the country was mentioned in numerous North-American films and series. To name just a few, they are: Doctor Who, Friends, House MD, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones and Simpsons.
Pryymachenko says all the episodes from 89 movies that he used create a story that American filmmakers tell about Ukraine. “And they’ve been telling this story to the whole world for some 56 years,” he says.
Prymachenko is a second year student of the master program at Lviv Ukrainian Catholic University. Prior to that he got his filmmaking diploma in California.
The director says he is generally interested in cultural and investment promotion of Ukraine in the West. “And I can say yet no one has made a study of what does the western audience think of us. So I decided to do it,” Pryymachenko says. It took him about a week to compile all the episodes into one story.
To fulfil the idea he used the script based search by keywords “Ukraine” and “Ukrainian”.
As a result a few common images of Ukrainians and Ukrainian have manifested.
Ukrainian man is a warrior, bandit or a fool.
Ukrainian woman is a housemaid or a prostitute.
Anything invented or produced in Ukraine is uninteresting or low-quality.
Giovanni De Padova, 27, an Italian from Milan, who’s never been to Ukraine, but met a few of its natives at his University, has a surprisingly similar idea about what kind of people live there, in general.
“Ukrainian men are a bit too aggressive, probably because I have seen them always drunk.” Though he ensures he does like Ukrainian women. The girls that I have met were really funny, sociable, smart and cute and I remember that my Ukrainian friends were the best in the classroom,” he said.
Pryymachenko says his video actually shows what Americans and other westerners would never say live. “They are too polite and usually don’t want to offend others, but that’s what they think,” he says.
The young director ensures stereotypes should be destroyed as soon as possible. “Western audience knows that stereotypes are bad. So we just need to point out the misinterpretation and they will start destroying them themselves”.
Business can also be affected by the country’s negative image. Without rebranding, the author says, Ukrainianmanufacturers will not be able to fully enter the Western market. “Who would buy a product, made in the country associated with something insufficient and backward,” Pryymachenko explains.
56 years, 89 titles and a single story about Ukraine from Andriy Pryymachenko on Vimeo.
