While war, corruption and politics sullied Ukraine’s image in the world again, 2017 also came with healthy, image-boosting achievements. Here are the Kyiv Post’s top 5 picks:
Eurovision
The Eurovision Song Contest, held in May, showed that Ukraine knows how to host world-class events, just as during the Euro 2012 football championships. Kyiv got the rights to stage the event after Crimean Tatar singer Jamala won Eurovision 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden, with her song “1944.” While Eurovision 2017 faced its share of skepticism and scandals, including Russia’s withdrawal from the contest after its entrant was banned for performing in Russian-annexed Crimea, the show got rave reviews.
The organizers sold 64,000 out of the 70,000 tickets for all nine Eurovision shows, while 230 million viewers around the world tuned in to watch the contest broadcast live from Kyiv. Ukraine also attracted around 20,000 foreign tourists during Eurovision.
Bronze at Cannes Lions
Ukraine finally got its first award at the renowned Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Commemorative performance “Witness,” created by Ukraine’s Crisis Media Center, received the Bronze Cannes Lion. The music performance was dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Babyn Yar tragedy, when Nazi German soldiers killed more than 34,000 Kyivan Jews and others in 1941.
The director of “Witness,” Gennadiy Kurochka, wrote that the victory “broke the enchanted circle.”
“Witness” was staged in the park near Babyn Yar in September 2016 as part of a commemorative concert.
Berlinale
The Ukrainian documentary called “Shkola Nomer 3” (School Number 3) about teens living in eastern Ukraine won Cristal Bear in the Generation 14 category at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival in March.
The film, directed by Yelizaveta Smith and Georg Genoux, features the lives of 13 adolescents from Mykolaivka in war-torn Donetsk Oblast. Genoux was working on a documentary play called “My Mykolaivka” based on monologues by the teens in which they reveal their hopes, dreams and fears, and “Shkola Nomer 3” is based on this play.
The film crew managed to find donors and bring most of the teens who starred in a documentary to Berlin for the premiere, where they received a Grand Prix.
The Salem Prize
Another major victory for Ukraine came in the field of math: Ukrainian Maryna Viazovska won the Salem Prize, an annual award founded by the widow of prominent Greek mathematician Raphael Salem. Viazovska solved the sphere-packing problem in eight-dimensional spaces and, in cooperation with other scientists, in 24- dimensional spaces. Viazovska is now a professor in Federal Polytechnic School in Lausanne, Switzerland.
This year Viazovska also won a New Horizons in Mathematics prize, part of the prestigious Breakthrough Prizes award founded by Google founder Sergey Brin, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki among others.
Commemorative performance “Witness” won bronze at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2017. (Courtesy)
Ukrainian creativity
Ukrainian creative and public relations agencies got in the spotlight in 2017, appearing on the award lists in various festivals and contests.
This year’s symbols of Eurovision Song Contest, a traditional Ukrainian necklace, got mixed reviews from Ukrainians. However, the corporate identity by creative agencies Banda Agency and Republique was praised by the professionals at German Red Dot Awards contest, where it won a Grand Prix in the field of communication design.
The exhibition called Museum of News by Gres Todorchuk won this year’s European Excellence Awards, which celebrates achievements of communication professionals in Europe. Museum of News told the history of Ukrainian media.
Another advertisement called “Queen. You’re not you: British Edition” for chocolate bar Snickers by advertising agency BBDO Ukraine won gold at Art Directors Club of Europe Awards or ADC*E Awards in a section for posters.
