Ukraine’s main movie event of the year, Molodist (Youth) Film Festival, is going to take place in Kyiv Oct. 18-26. The festival presents works from the best young moviemakers, including feature films and short film debuts, as well as student movies.
Besides, plenty of great works will be demonstrated as a part of a non-competitive program, including special showings, shorts collections and retrospectives of legendary actors and directors.
The honorable president of this year’s Molodist is Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko, and the co-heads of the board of trustees are actor Gerard Depardieu and Hares Youssef. As usual, the festival (www.molodist.com) expects many famous guests from the cinema world, but as it often happens, their names are kept secret until the last minute.
However, the composition of the 38th Molodist’s international jury was already announced. The jury will be headed by American actor Armand Assante (“Napoleon and Josephine: a Love Story,” “The Mambo Kings” “Blind Justice,” “The Odyssey”), who played the lead role in the Romanian movie “California Dreamin’,” recently shown in local theaters as a part of the “Molodist Premonition” mini-fest.
Other members of the jury include Russian actress Alla Demidova, acting in film and the theater since the 1970s; Hungarian director Andras Fesos, mostly known for his short movies and documentaries such as “Tale in Sarajevo,” “Want to Reach the Sun” and “Horse Race at New Year’s Eve”; Ukrainian artist Serhiy Yakutovych, the illustrator of numerous literature editions and art director of Ukrainian films “A Prayer for Hetman Mazepa” and “Taras Bulba” (still in production); Gaga Chkheyidze, head of the International Tbilisi Film Festival and Yuriy Makarov, Ukrainian TV host, journalist and writer.
The program of the festival is vast and exciting, featuring over 400 movies, with many films shown in original with subtitles or live translation. But because most films will be shown just once during the fest, it’s best to plan your film program and get tickets in advance!
Competition
Feature films competing for the main prizes of the festival include “The Guitar” – a directing debut by Robert Redford’s daughter Amy, showing a transformation of a woman after she is diagnosed with a terminal illness, fired from her thankless job and abandoned by her boyfriend. Given two months to live, she blows her savings and maxes out her credit cards to pursue her dreams, which include learning to play the electric guitar. The Russian film “Mukha” (Fly) by Vladimir Kott is about the cruel world of teenagers, that does not accept outsiders and does not spare insiders. A touching film about love, “A Simple Heart” (“Un Coeur Simple”) by Marion Laine tells about Felicite, a simple and kind maid, who devotes herself completely to giving love to all those who surround her. But fate seems to always deny her any love in return. The drama “Versailles,” directed by Pierre Schiller, tells a story of homeless young mother Nina, who drifted to Versailles with her 5-year old son Enzo. In the woods near the palace, they meet Damien, a man who lives in a hut, cut off from everything. After Nina suddenly dissapears, the man and the child get acquainted, start to get along and grow fond of each other. The Canadian film “The Fight” (Le Ring), directed by Anais Barbeau-Lavalette is about thirty-year-old Rasha, who lives with his alcoholic father and tries to make ends meet by giving lessons and hosting a program on the local radio. The monotony of their lives is interrupted by the arrival of Igor. They all get together one evening, and what begins as a cheerful high school reunion turns into an emotional roller coaster of reminiscing and grim soul-searching.
Other films on the program include: “Night Before Eyes” (Nacht vor Augen) by Brigitte Maria Bertele (Germany), “Shultes” (Shultes) by Bakur Bakuradze (Russia), “The Investigator” (Anyomozo) by Attila Gigor (Hungary), “Snow” (Snijeg) by Aida Begic (Bosnia and Herzegovina), “Salt of This Sea” (Milh Hadha Al-Bahr ) by Annemarie Jacir (Switzerland, France), “Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame” by Hana Makhmalbaf (Iran) and “Huddersfield” (Hadersfild) by Ivan Zivkovic (Serbia). Overall Molodist’s competitive program consists of 12 feature films and 20 to 25 in both short and student film competition.
The program Panorama of Ukrainian Cinema 2007-2008 offers over 20 films by young directors, including the most “awkward film of the year”, as the media dubbed it already, “Las Meninas” by Ihor Podolchak – a psychological drama about a family living in the city suburbs in an old villa, which looks more like a stage setting than a real house. Among the actors starring in the film are Mykola Veresen, Lyubov Timoshevska, Dmitriy Chernyavsky and Hanna Yarovenko.
Non-competitive program
The 38th Molodist festival will be opened by a film from the non-competitive program, “Birds of Paradise,” by Ukrainian director Roman Balayan, which premiered as part of the main program of Moscow International Film Festival last summer. The film is a psychological drama based on a novel by emigrant-writer Dmitriy Savytskiy “Waltz for K” and “From Nowhere with Love,” adapted for the wide screen by playwright Rustam Ibrahimbekov. The soundtrack was created by Svyatoslav Vakarchuk and Okean Elzy. The story takes place in the Soviet Union in the beginning of the 1980s. The characters, played by Andriy Kuzychov, Oksana Akinshyna, Oleh Yankovskiy and Serhiy Romanyuk, stand up against the inhuman goverment machine. The actors and film crew are expected to arrive in Kyiv to present the movie to Ukrainian viewers.
Retrospectives
Belgian film director Andre Delvaux was widely considered a founder of Belgian cinema, his films set between reality and fantasy. His retrospective will include the films “Benvenuta” (1983), “Appointment in Bray” (1971), “One Night, a Train” (1968) and others.
The Jeanne Moreau Retrospective features the best films of the legendary actress: “Eva” (1962) and “Mr. Klein” (1976) by Joseph Losey, “Dangerous Liaisons” (1959) by Roger Vadim, “Bay of Angels” (1963) by Jacques Demi and other works.
A Century of The Great retrospective will feature the ultimate classics of various countries: “All About Eve” by Joseph Mankiewicz (U.S., 1950), “Village Teacher” by Mark Donskoy (Russia, 1947), “Mama Roma” by Pier Paolo Pasolini (Italy, 1962), “The Test for Faithfulness” by Ivan Pyryev (Russia, 1954) and “Annychka” by Borys Ivchenko (Ukraine, 1968).
Modern films
Traditional Festival of Festivals will show a number of films that participated in recent international festivals: “Sita Sings the Blues” by American Nina Paley, “Nightwatching” by Peter Greenaway (Britain), “Rumba” by Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon (Belgium), “Three Monkeys” by Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan and other movies.
French Cinema Today features eight new French films: “Julia” by Erick Zonca, “Born in 1968” by Olvier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau, “Paris” by Cedric Klapisch and “Disco” by Fabien Onteniente among others.
Sebrian New Wave will present new Serbian movies: “The Fourth Man” by Dejan Zecevic, “The Optimists” by Goran Paskaljevic, “Maradona by Kusturica” by Emir Kusturica and other films.
Special Showings of films by famous directors will include “Ashes of Time” (1994) by iconic Korean director Wong Kar Wai, “Her Name is Sabine” (2007) – debut film by French actress Sandrine Bonnaire, and “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” by one of the most eccentric American directors Terry Gilliam among others.
Also, don’t miss a collection of shorts A Long Night of European Cinema, Cinema Against Totalitarianism, Movie Documents about Holodomor and Modern Experiement Program Signet de Nuit.
Sunny Bunny
The Sunny Bunny program of the unique queer film competition in Eastern Europe will include two elements: special screenings of gay and lesbian themed films, which will be based around Ukraine and the post-Soviet space, supplemented by a guest screening of Australian queer shorts and a parallel competition for the Sunny Bunny prize to be awarded to one of the films included in the Molodist festival program. The Sunny Bunny film contest was established as a parallel competition in the Molodist program in 2001 and gathered an international jury. From all films shown at Molodist, it selected the one that was most significant for the LGBT-community and awarded it a symbolic prize – a toy bunny with a little looking glass attached. In 2006 and 2007, queer films were presented as non-competitive program screenings, yet united into their own special programs, organized respectively in cooperation with the Paris Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival. This year, the program will include both competitive and non-competitive elements, as well as several presentations and special events. The trashy, funny, thrilling, flamboyant, intensive and even shocking collection of best Australian queer short films this year will be presented by Australian queer cinema director and producer Bartholomew Sammut. Queer short films, which will first be presented respectively in student and short competition programs as well as in Long Nights of Short Films, will be screened in Zhovten as a separate program.
Various cinemas. For more information go to www.molodist.com.
