The world of cinema is enormous: moviestars, red carpet, world fame… But usually that is all associated with the game cinema, but when it comes to the documentary so during the Soviet Union times it was seen as a boring «epic canvass on the topics which are socially important»…To dispel the myths around the documentary is successful for the fourth year for an inspiration and organisator of Lampa.doc Natalia Krasylnykova. About her favourite work, a way to the cinema and Ukrainian cinematography has told to Zhytomyr.Travel Natalia Krasylnykova,a documentary maker with Zhytomyr routs
«A name of the festival Lampa.doc has originated from the lamp, from which cinema has begun technologically. All in all, a lamp is a device which brings light. And so we wanted to bring the lights»
«By now, I cannot consider myself as a filmmaker, because the last film that I have done is dated on 2015. But that is a very important starting point, because after that I started making a festival Lampa.doc. Now I have no time and strenght, caust making documentary takes lots of resources. Right now I consider myself mostly as an organisator of the cultural events, than a filmmaker. I feel in this role quite comfortably. And I think that by this very moment as a head of Lampa.doc for the society I am more important than a filmmaker»
«I have a journalist education – I have graduated from the Kyiv National University named after Taras Shevchenko. When I was writing a graduate work I have picked up a topic «Docudrama». I have started my own investigation, and got excited about the cinema, realised that cinema is that I want to do. Then I have entered the University named after Karpenko-Karyi to the specialisation «a documentary filmmaker». During studying I realised that even that wasn’t enough for me, though there were lots of masters on our course. But there were also some nuances…I am grateful to the masters, who taught us humanity and ethic approach, but from the professional point of view I lacked something, so I decided to go to study to the cinema school of Anjei Vayda in Warsaw. As a result I have gained twice a scholarship from the Polish government «Gaude Polonia» for the talented young people, which gave me an opportunity to end the studying process and to film at the professional level a debut work»
«At the cinema school of Anjei Vayda there is a very interesting way of studying, as by entering it you have to have some particular background. They do not learn you how to stand near the camera or record the sound-you have to come up and be already able to do something, to have some particular skills. A process of studying consists of short sessions of three-four days in a month, when you come and show all the footage that you have from this period of time. The masters are working with you and help you to understand some ideas and focus on them. A studying process is also interesting because it teaches you understanding and a feeling of competition in its positive sense. On the course there are selected approximately 12 students, who have a task for the first term-to make a three minute etude on the given topic. Due to the results of the filmed etudes and a written application for a 25-minute film to the next round go only a part of the students. A passing into the second round is an opportunity to gain a small fund for your own film, and there is no such in a practice of the Ukrainian cinema schools»
«And so when you are selected into the second round of the studying there are no boundaries, as we have in our cinema schools: no deadlines, exams. So we have to make a film till some date and to show it at the exam. Only you adjust a shooting process, because everything can go in a different way: a main character cannot open, the circumstances change, the film transforms. And that is all ok-because that is specials and difference between documentary and journalism. The documentary makers have time»
«We have a various viewer. This year a group who did rebranding, decided to conduct an analytical research and to output an image of our target audience in an image of a one concrete person. What does he/she do? What is his/her age qualification? We had output a collective image of a lady Olia, aged 30-35, she has got a child or two, and is a very active citizen of her town and country. She is so-called «attractionist». With such a formulation I partly agree, and partly disagree. Our audience is very diverse,because the events are held in different regions of Ukraine, and every region has its own hero»
«A modern documentary isn’t connected to the Soviet Union. Nowadays there many young and new names, who had caught the Soviet era only by the date if their birth and so didn’t feel its influence. Alisa Kovalenko, Nadia Parfan – are new directors, who are nearly 30. A new generation want to shoot that they want to, that hurts them personally. The speciality and uniqueness of the documentary is the rethinking of the reality and an artistic look at it. Here are very important the idea and the position of the director, what does he or she feel, his attitude to the main character. Frankly speaking, when I am at some festival and watch a film and don’t feel any attitude to the main hero, this film stops being interesting for me, and I do not even understand why do I watch it. Because a point of view of the director is the most important. Just like that was one of the previous works by Alisa Kovalenko, who was well received by the world community. A premiere of the film was at the IDFA (International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam). The film had a title «Alice in the world of war». The author herself went to ATO with camera, and that her own look at the situation, that was at that time»
«At the film Lampa.doc for the four years existence there was no film which told about war directly. The last year there was a film that concerned a post-traumatic syndrome. A good film of a young Ukrainian director Alina Horlova, I have seen at the closing of the festival DocudaysUA by an accident. It was so that I wanted to watch another film,and so I came earlier. And I thought: «Ok, I will watch this one too». And was excited. I was involved into the film from the first very moments, as it is an atmosphere movie, which gives an opportunity to understand how a person feels in a particular emotional state. A film is about one concrete heroine, one particular woman, who is trying to get out of a post-traumatic syndrome. A movie is very strong. And that is why it came into the festival, as it was very important to show, with what can the Ukrainian families and the Ukrainians face, when their close people come back from war»
«…now I think is quite early to shoot about war. To fix the reality, to archivate it – yes, but now we are not in a state of the rethinking of the reality. Moreover, now we have a lot of the films which are made in a poor quality, and it can do more harm, than use»
«At first, when the festival as an event had just started, I had a task to tell and to show that the documentary is not a propaganda, not a dull and boring cinema, as it was in times of the Soviet Union, not a movie about hares and rabbits in a style of National Geographic, and not a movie about the scientific experiments, which is done by the popular science cinema. Documentary is first of all about the Human»
«Why are such projects are interesting in a long-term perspective? Four years is not that much, but now I can see some changes. As for me, a good example is Zaporizzhia. It seemed, an industrial town, not so many cultural events, but there we have a very good audience, a warm one. The events in Zaporizzhia were held at the island of Khortytsia. It is a special location as after 5 p.m. the public transport doesn’t go there. And from the point of view of the social phenomena the absence of the transport played out in our favour. For the past two years I asked those people who went there by their own cars to pick up people, if they had some spare places. This year people helped by themselves and so they helped with the chairs. And that is a permanent problem with it: with chairs, and with people who will get them. In Zaporizzhia people know by themselves that they have to go and take some chairs, and after the showing to get them back»
«In Zhytomyr the viewers are less emotional. I don’t know with what specials this «emotional scale» is connected but the least emotional viewers are in Volyn, which surprised me a lot. So there in the other cities are laughing, here is the silence. I even thought that we didn’t get the right film, or something has gone wrong with the files»
«The films are not given to festival, and we do not announce a call ( a competitive selection). The films I select by myself. Sometimes I write directly to the filmmakers. Speaking about this, I sometimes hear different things, like, why there is no contest. Firstly, it leaves me a freedom of changing a topic. If there was announced a call, so the people would send me that they decided to. And so, knowing a topic, I search for a film on a particular topic»
«In this year program the youngest among the authors is Tadeush Kabich, a Polish film director. His film is about the Warsaw castle and its museum workers. Tadeush is 26, and he has recently graduated from the cinema high school. There are among the authors also the masters of the Polish documentary-Pavel Lozynskyi. He is a representative of the cinema family: his father Marzel Lozynskyi got an «Oscar» for his documentary «89 millimetres from Europe». There is a couple-Elvira Nevera and Piotr Rosolovskyi, the authors of the film about Abkhazia. They are widely known,they also got an « Oscar» for their documentary «A rabbit like in Berlin». They are slightly after 40. For all these Lampa.doc is unique. Maybe,it is a way to show how different a documentary can be, so are those who create it»
«In the way of a timing the documentary films can be very different. Some thinks that a short movie is just a sketch or an etude. No! A short movie can be a full authorial expression, a complete work! And in 20 minutes a full story can be told. In past years we had an absolutely acceptional film by Zosia Kovalevska «Connections», which lasted only for 18 minutes. It was about how vital and necessary it can be just to say sometimes «sorry»
«One more task for the festival is to fight the myths and stereotypes. Of course, we established a social mission too. And additionally an attempt to promote аn inland tourism, because in every city we choose some historically or culturally significant location…Documentary is a unique content, which gives an opportunity to build up a dialogue. This is a cinema which is understood both in 16, and in 80»
«Of course, I have dreams. You know, sometimes it can be just some common and simple things. I have a desire to but chairs not for one year. (Laughs). Really! I want just have 150 of nice folding chairs. Of course іt leads to some household problems: a place is needed where they could be, a trailer which could drive them, but….Well, there is such a simple dream!»
«I have no favourite film. Films just like books: they do not change, that is really changing is your own attitude to them, because you are passing everything through yourself, through the prism of your perception. And we are changing-we become different in every second, in every minute. And accordingly, the movie changes in our eyes»
«Sometimes there are some periods, especially when I actively visited festivals, when I start in speaking with my close people, operating a cinema vocabulary and say: « And do you know how they in some film managed to solve this problem?» This is documentary-there are real stories of the real people»
«Several years of my childhood were in Zhytomyr with my grandpa and grandma. Unfortunately, I remember a little, some excerpts, but very bright and warm…For instance, like my grandpa every weekend used to go to the attractions with me…These reminiscences are very-very bright for me… Zhytomyr for me is a city of my childhood…»
«I would really want the citizens of Zhytomyr to live in a harmony with themselves, with their own city, with the world. Speaking about festival, I am eager that the people should feel the documentary by taste: a comfort and atmosphere of such cinema, the people who will be around»
