We have long lived in the world of blurred and even overturned ideas. It comes as no surprise that documentaries, which serve as a highly organised reflection of our life, can at times create an alternative picture of our reality. Judging from the contemporary documentary product that surfaces on international film festivals, the image of Ukraine is also stuck in the whirlpool of stereotypes: Chornobyl, football, Euromaidan, war with Russia and Crimea. Personal stories become subject to collective discourse. In social and political chaos, emphases are shifted, and nuances are lost. This dense stream flows directly onto the audience, which no longer knows where the truth lies. In such a situation, film criticism appears to be useful. It creates the necessary distance which helps us to break the tether of our automatic perceptions and critically analyse what we see. During the first festival event, which will bring together a roundtable of international and Ukrainian professional press, we will talk about how documentary films balance between creating and debunking clichés about Ukraine.
Speakers: publicist Tessa Mooji (USA), film critics Emma Jones (UK) and Natalya Serebryakova (Ukraine)
Moderator: Daria Badior ( Lb.ua, Ukraine)
