The screening is followed by a statement by the artist and activist Marya Dmitrieva, presented by Mikhail Lylov. 

Each film in the programme addresses a different fragment of life, a different space, where violence and the ways of dealing with its consequences reverberate. These spaces can be domestic and public, a shared history and a personal memory, mental spaces and landscapes. Authors highlight issues of the society that, on the one hand, had an open war zone on the eastern side, and on the other, has been reworking the positions towards its history and political alignments.

Letter to a Turtledove
Dana Kavelina, Ukraine 2020, 20 min. Russian OV with English subtitles 

Letter to a Turtledove is an artistic reworking of found footage shot during the war in the Donbas region of the Ukraine. By intercutting this material with her own animated segments, staged mise-en-scènes, and archival images, Kavelina creates a feminist anti-war film poem.

So They Won't Say We Don't Remember
Yarema Malashchuk/Roman Himey, Ukraine 2020, 24 min. without dialogue

This video work is about both the hidden and the visible elements of the post-industrial landscape of the Donbas. In the film, locals and artists traverse the surface, following one of the underground routes of the Novator mine.

In Memory of Antonina Nikolayevna on Lost Love
Oleksandr Steshenko/Kateryna Libkind/Roman Himey/Yarema Malashchuk/Pavlo Yurov, Ukraine 2020, 30 min. Russian OV with English subtitles

In Memory of Antonina Nikolayevna on Lost Love is based on a screenplay by Oleksandr Steshenko - a person with down syndrome and a great admirer of the soap opera genre. The film uses the technique of alienation to tell a passionate love drama that escalates into revenge and domestic violence due to the conventions of a “normal” society.

NO!NO!NO!
Mykola Ridnyi, Ukraine 2017, 22 min. Russian OV with English subtitles

The main protagonists of the film are young people from Kharkiv, a city located in the Eastern part of the Ukraine. Their early twenties coincided with the breakout of the war in the neighboring region of Donbas. The proximity to the war has an effect on each of the characters and their activities. The protagonists react and reflect the political events through their specific relationships with the urban space and the reality of social media.

Marya Dmitrieva is a media artist and activist from St. Petersburg. She is a co-organizer of the queer anarcho-feminist group Studio 4413 which deals with the translation of contemporary critical theory into the language of everyday practices.

The screening is followed by statements from the artist and activist Natalia Tikhonova and the Media Resistance Collective, presented by Mikhail Lylov 

If the history of the dissident movement and the history of the Gulag were taught in Russian schools, Russia might not be where it is today. If Ukrainian, Chechen, Georgian, Armenian, Belarusian, Tajik and Uzbek, Baltic, Finnish and Uralic languages were taught in Russian schools, Russia might not be where it is today. If feminist politicians dominated public thinking, we would not be talking about politics in terms of conflicts of interest between states or in terms of imperialist invasions. There would probably be less war crimes and no fascism, discrimination would not be promoted. Is it a coincidence that the hope of the broad anti-war protests in Russia rests on the mothers of future conscripts?

Street of our Memory
Tatjana Efrussi, Russia 2019, 23 min. Russian OV with English subtitles

“The film documents an event organized in December 2019 in Norilsk, Russia. Its central element was the guided bus tour around Sevastopolskaya street. In the 1940s, Sevastopolskaya was designed and built by the prisoners who were the main population of the Arctic camp-city. By the 1980s, a significant part of the original structures decayed and were demolished. The demolition provoked intense protest and debate among the Norilsk public, who still remember Sevastopolskaya’s houses and its atmosphere with nostalgia.” (Tatjana Efrussi)

All Other Things Equal
Anya Tsyrlina, Russia 2020, 20 min. without dialogue 

Short films presenting the ordinary and extraordinary lives of women were a staple of state-sponsored Soviet documentary production in the 1970s and 1980s. What can we see today in these films? Do these images contain an idea of equality in society, how do they relate to “western” feminist ideals, thoughts and principles?

Holy God
Vladlena Sandu, Russia 2020, 25 min. Russian OV with English subtitles

“A Self-portrait. In 1998 our family came under armed attack. We were able to escape and we fled Grozny (Chechnya). We have been silent about it since.” Vladlena Sandu tells an incisive and dignified story about herself, her mother and grandmother, the physical and psychological trauma and the ordinary existence of a refugee, including dog food, homelessness and intensive care. On New Year’s Day, Putin pays tribute to the soldiers who are “fighting terrorism” in the war in Chechnya.

Natalia Tikhonova is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher from St. Petersburg. She works with questions of memory, identity, as well as personal and political borders.

Media Resistance is a collective formed after the invasion of Ukraine to collect and propose strategies to support activists under political repression in Russia.