At the end of last year, thanks to Docudays UA, I was lucky enough to visit the CPH:DOX Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival. It turned out to be so beautiful that I did not get a chance to visit the famous Louisiana Museum of Modern Art or the Mermaid, which always suffers from vandals who repeatedly unscrew her iron head. However, I managed to bring back some wonderful films for our DOCU/ART festival program, which inspired me to discuss the manipulative power of art.

OLHA BIRZUL (DOCUDAYS UA), the curator of DOCU/ART program

However, to be honest, I was going there with a different purpose in the first place. Apart from the traditional formats, the CPH:DOX festival in Copenhagen has a powerful program called NEW:VISION, where creative films made on the boundary of video art and documentary compete. As a general rule, the projects are rather abstract, they offer the spectator the experience of feelings like Alice who is rapidly falling into the hole of the author’s imagination. But while Carroll’s heroine finally lands at some point, whereas the viewer cannot even dream about it.

Unfortunately, this time I did not have a chance to fully enjoy the weightlessness I was offered and let the creators to manipulate my imagination as they had wished. I was trying hard to submit myself to the suggestion, but instead my self-defence instinct was triggered. Excuse my frankness, but, since I was born, I have been unable to get rid of the feeling that I live in the country where the unconscious mechanism of stitching the society together with the threads of propaganda is being used all the time. And today’s tailors, as we can see, just went on another round. I believe that the time will come when we will be able to talk about abstract and intuitive topics, but now we are aiming at being concrete.

In DOCU/ART, the program organized together by Docudays UA and the PinchukArtCentre, despite film screenings a number of discussions will happen, in which we offer you the opportunity to analyze the way artistic interpretation, exemplified by documentary cinema, changes our perception of reality. And we will have a lot of things to talk about, because manipulation has been rooted in the nature of art from its very beginnings. Since ancient times, artists juggle meanings and stitch the reality as well. The only difference is that their threads are like taht of Ariadne, which helps us find the exit from the labyrinth. And if it is held by a hero as smart and handsome as Theseus, the success is guaranteed.

Despite being documentaries, all three films in the DOCU/ART program are based on the heroic figures of their directors. The program will be opened by Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?, made by Michel Gondry in the genre of documentary animation. The thing is that the protagonist of the film, the famous American linguist Noam Chomsky, once made a revolution in linguistics by suggesting that a person does not learn their language in the way the official science tells us. We must warn you that the film is not easy to comprehend, for Chomsky is a hyperintellectual person, but with the aid of Gondry’s inventiveness the film becomes a fantastic trip into the world of science.

 A didactic film with a Biblical title, The Salt of the Earth by Wim Wenders and Juliano Salgado, brings up the interesting and ambiguous topic of the manipulative power of photography. The protagonist of the film is the famous master of social photography Sebastião Salgado, who captured almost every human disaster – war, famine, genocide – on his films. His works drew public attention to the horrors of the Third World; on the other hand, some critics, such as Susan Sontag, think that he aestheticised the war and distanced the perception of violence from its real ugliness.

The third film, Art and Craft, is a wonderful artistic mystery story, whose authenticity is impossible to believe. It focuses on the story of the strange contemporary art forger Mark Landis, who filled American museums with self-made works by Picasso and Walt Disney for thirty years. No better example can be found to serve for a discussion on who are the manipulators in the contemporary world and how they do it.

OLGA TYKHONOVA (PINCHUKARTCENTRE), curator of the discussion platform of DOCU/ART program

When you touch upon the topic of manipulation, it is almost impossible to get away with it. For most of the audience, this topic is an unwanted guest; it is ambiguous, multi-layered, with a wealth of camouflage and tricks, and it clearly has a bad reputation. Of course, it is difficult (if possible at all) to say, where exactly — not only in the viewfinder or on the screen — the boundary between reality and fiction lies. Nevertheless, on the territory of cinema, the blurring and displacing of this boundary is perfectly perceivable, since it is shaped by certain artistic means. It is the careful investigation of the boundaries and thoughtful preparation of the instruments used during filming which will form the basis of a common discussion program organized by Docudays UA Festival and PinchukArtCentre. So what is a documentary and where is its ‘document’? How does life become a work of art, transforming our perception of facts on its way? Can representative techniques subjugate the facts which they represent, and is there room for the author in documentary cinema? We invite you to investigate, analyse, and even discuss these ideas in the good and diverse company of both theorists and practitioners. After all, truth is born in dispute

Short:

March 22, 21:00
Documentary Is the Man Who is Tall Happy, Michel Gondry
Venue: Kyiv Cinema House

March 23, 21:00
Documentary The Salt of the Earth, Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
Venue: Kyiv Cinema House, red stage

March 24, 19:00 
Documentary Is the Man Who is Tall Happy, Michel Gondry
Imprint of Reality – discussion featuring program curators Olga Birzul and Olga Tykhonova, together with director Tetiana Kononenko
Venue: PinchukArtCentre

March 25, 19:00 
Horatio: So have I heard and do in part believe it - discussion featuring program curators Olga Birzul and Olga Tykhonova, together with director Tetiana Kononenko
Venue: PinchukArtCentre

March 25, 21:00 
Documentary Art and Craft, Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman
Venue: Kyiv Cinema House, red stage

March 26, 19:00
Truth Mode – discussion featuring photographers Oleksandr Liapin, Yevhenia Belorusets, Oleksandr Gliadelov and Valeriy Miloserdov, moderator – Anton Ivanov
Venue: PinchukArtCentre

March 26, 21:00 
Documentary The Salt of the Earth, Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
Venue: Kyiv Cinema House, red stage 

March 29, 15:00 
Manipulations in the World of Art. History of Forgeries – lecture, art expert Natalia Romanova  
Documentary Art and Craft, Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman
Venue: PinchukArtCentre

Discussions will be held only in Ukrainian language

Registered event attendees will have priority entry to the art centre without queuing. To register in advance and receive additional information, please use the contact information below:
Tel.: +38 044 590-08-58
E-mail: [email protected]