Stupeni (Steps) festival calls for rights protection; Pick your favorite at Manhattan Short Films Fest
Ten years have passed since the Lev Tolstoy Center for Ethical Treatment of Animals, “Life,” was established. Throughout the entire period of its existence, the center has actively carried out numerous campaigns and public activities on animal welfare. One of the new directions of its struggle is shooting documentary and feature films on animal rights.
Since cinema, with its unusual and universal appeal, is the best, most available and open way to bring and display rights protection problems to people, the center has organized an annual international rights protection film festival, Stupeni (Steps), for which many public organizations and filmmakers from all over the world submit their works on environmental protection, human and animal rights issues.
The first festival of its kind opens in Ukraine Oct. 4. The title of the festival Steps refers to the idea that humans should go up the steps of morality as well as down the steps of cruelty. The question is which way any of us will choose. The mission of the festival is to bring the most urgent social problems to society. The festival is aimed at expanding rights and liberation; showing that every person is responsible for everything on this Earth.
The festival program will feature 100 films from more than 30 countries. Steps will open with a demonstration of a new Ukrainian film, “Crucified,” which is based on forbidden articles and letters of iconic writer Lev Tolstoy.
Another highlight of the festival is the Oscar-winning film by Albert Gore, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which received wide recognition in the US and around the world.
Among other films to be shown is one that shocked viewers at the Cannes and Moscow festivals – Arthur Aristakisyan’s “Place On Earth,” “John and Yoko’s Year of Peace,” and many more. Among the guests of the festival will be representatives of organizations from more than 15 countries, including England, the US, Germany, France, Turkey, Spain, Israel and Kazakhstan.
Apart from film showings, the festival will include a lot of photo and poster exhibitions, seminars and round tables devoted to human and animal rights problems. Demonstrations of the films will be free of charge. After the award ceremony in Kyiv, the festival will move to other cities of Ukraine – Kharkiv and Yalta.
Dom Kino (6 Saksahanskoho). Oct. 4-7, Free admission. Showings at 2 p.m., 4 p.m., 6 p.m., 8 p.m.For more information, go to www.cetalife.com.ua or call 050-403-1010
Ten years ago, the Manhattan Short Film Festival, founded by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, began with 14 films projected on the side of a truck parked in Manhattan. Growing every year, spreading to more and more countries around the world, and finally moving to its current location in Union Square Park in New York, Manhattan Short introduced the “You Be the Judge!” system of voting by the audience in 2004.
So now, within a 10-day period, audience members in 99 cities on three continents, including Ukraine, will be handed voting cards upon their entry and asked to vote for the one film they feel should win the festival. They will be choosing among this year’s 12 film finalists, chosen out of 456 submitted entries from 32 countries. The winner will be announced on Oct. 1 at Union Square Park, and the film’s creators will be awarded with a unique opportunity to make their own film with the assistance of expert producers, using their professional industrial and technical base, as well as show this film at 100 cinemas on four continents.
In Ukraine, the festival will open on Sept. 28 and will hold showings in seven of the country’s largest cities – Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Poltava and Lviv.
Kyiv (19 Chervonoarmiyska, 251-2199). Sept. 28-30, Tickets – Hr 25
