PITTSBURGH – The Ukrainian Community of Western Pennsylvania (UCOWPA) in conjunction with the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (REEES) at the University of Pittsburgh, presented another in its series of Ukrainian Film Festivals on September 21 and September 28 in the auditorium of the Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Building.
The audience was welcomed by Bohdan Czmola, Ukrainian Film Festival coordinator for UCOWPA. He explained that from 72 titles, 12 were viewed by the committee and four films were selected for presentation. “Donbass,” directed by Sergey Loznitsa (2018) and “Breaking Point: The War for Democracy in Ukraine,” co-directed by Mark Jonathan Harris and Oles Sanin (2017) were shown on September 21. “The Guide,” directed by Oles Sanin (2014) and “Ukrainian Sheriffs,” directed by Roman Bondarchuk (2016) were shown on September 28. Each film is in color and has English subtitles.
“Donbass” is composed of 13 vignettes describing the degradation of society in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in eastern Ukraine due to the invasion across the border by Russian troops and willing acceptance by Russophiles who want to establish a “Novorossiya.”
In perhaps the most poignant scene, a daughter, who has a position in the “separatist” government brings food to her “Mum,” who to escape the war is staying in an underground facility with other Ukrainian nationals. There, the cold, darkness and dampness permeate flesh, bone and soul. The daughter asks her mother to leave and come live with her, but she refuses. The daughter asks, “Why do you want to live in this s**thole?” Her mother replies, “You have a flat, but I have a home,” then gets up, goes into another room and locks the door. The daughter bangs on the door, begging her mother to come with her. She knocks harder and screams louder, until she becomes a raging beast from hell. The mother stays put.
In another scene, a captured Ukrainian volunteer is tied to a street lamppost by two “separatist” soldiers, and the public is invited to “talk” to him. A crowd gathers. Four hooligans driving by stop and begin to hit the volunteer. One prods another to show his manhood by striking the volunteer in the face. A matronly woman also hits him in the face. An elderly woman strikes him with a pole. All are screaming “Fascist” at him. They ask, “Why did you come here? To kill babies?” In the occupied Donbas, defending one’s country from foreign invasion is Fascism. This is the result of continuous Soviet and Russian propaganda.
“Breaking Point” follows the lives of (in the film release’s words) “a children’s theater director, a doctor, a rabbi, a TV journalist, an investigative reporter, a lawyer-turned-medic and her soldier husband,” as they live through the Orange Revolution, the Revolution of Dignity on the Kyiv Maidan, and the invasion in eastern Ukraine. They each come to their own breaking point, when they decide that they should give up family, careers and their own lives to fight in defense of their country, the rule of law and democracy. The film has unique footage from many sources that has not been seen on the news.
The feature film “The Guide” relates the story of Peter Shamrock, the son of Michael, an American engineer. The father goes to Russia in the 1930s to design and build an agricultural tractor for Joseph Stalin. He “wins” a trip to Moscow. At the going away party, Mykola Skrypnyk, a devout Communist Party leader who supported Ukrainization, gives the father a copy of the “Kobzar.” Concealed within the book’s front cover are documents that detail Stalin’s true plans for Ukraine. He instructs the father to give the book to Welsh journalist Gareth Jones in Moscow.
As the father and son are boarding a train, they discover agents trying to break into the father’s luggage to find the book. But the book is in the son’s travel bag. The father is stabbed and tells his son to run. He does, and is grabbed into a boxcar by the blind kobzar Ivan. Peter becomes Ivan’s guide. Vladimir, of the Secret Police, is obsessed with recovering the documents and pursues Ivan and Peter across Ukraine. We learn the history and the ways of the blind kobzars and of their opposition to the oppressive government.
In the documentary “Ukrainian Sheriffs,” viewers follow them on their rounds and in their own personal lives in the small village of Stara Zburyivka. We meet the wife beater, the town drunkard and the village thief, and witness the funeral rites for the village prostitute. As the war in eastern Ukraine progresses, the sheriffs distribute notices to the village men of induction into the Ukrainian Army. More and more notices arrive. The film ends on a sad and foreboding note.
Campbell Robertson, a reporter for The New York Times, viewed the films shown on September 28. He interviewed several Ukrainians and wrote the article, “They See No Downside for Their Homeland, Ukraine, or Trump,” published on October 1 in the New York edition.