How the European film industry supports Ukraine in the culture war with Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s impassioned speech at the opening ceremony of the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday served as a reminder to the international film industry not to forget or forget the war raging on Europe’s eastern borders.

“Your opinion matters and your voice matters,” Zelensky said in his recorded video, urging the film industry to “talk about this war in the clearest language: the language of cinema, the language you all speak.”

More than six months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, news of the war began to slip out of the headlines, something Zelensky noted in his speech, noting that those who died in the conflict could be “forgotten” and dark.

But in the months since the February 24 invasion, the global film industry has come together to support and preserve the funding, distribution and presentation of Ukrainian cinema and its creators by the Ukrainian film industry.

Initiatives like the $20 million Ukrainian Content Club will see global giants like Netflix and the BBC pre-purchase or co-produce Ukrainian content. The Ukrainian Film Academy and the House of Europe, an EU-funded body created to promote cultural exchange between Ukrainians and their EU counterparts, have launched a program of script development grants of up to US$15,000 for writers and producers. create films and television productions. for the international market. House of Europe and Netflix have launched a separate scholarship program to provide education to 100 Ukrainian filmmakers in filmmaking, post-production and presentation.

Major international film festivals have focused on Ukrainian productions and created programs to connect local filmmakers with funders, co-producers and sales companies outside the country.
On September 8, Venice will host Ukraine Day, which will feature a series of such initiatives, created under the auspices of the industrial section of the Venice Production Bridge festival.

“The most important thing at the moment is funding, because the Ukrainian television and film market and the Ukrainian economy have been severely affected by the war and will be in poor condition for a long time,” says Daria Leigonier-Fialko. One of the producers who founded the Ukrainian film and television collective Organization of Ukrainian Producers (OUP) shortly after the Russian invasion to document the Russian invasion and its impact on Ukraine.

In the weeks leading up to the Venice Film Festival, Autentic, the non-fiction arm of independent German production company Beta Film, won the international distribution rights to documentaries produced by OUP. Mariupol. Never lose hope s 9 lives. Never lose hopeBased on the diaries of local journalist Nadia Sukhorukova, the war is told through the eyes of local residents who lived through the first month of the invasion of Mariupol. 9 lives Follow the volunteers who risk their lives to rescue animals from abandoned areas after the Russian invasion.

“The main mission of our organization is to help Ukraine in this war, to show the world, to the international public, what is happening in Ukraine, to give a transparent and fair image to fight Russian propaganda”, says Igor Storchak, one of the founders of OUP. .

Beta Film has been particularly active in supporting Ukrainian productions since the war, recently taking on Ukrainian historical series. coffee with cardamom For global market and sale SilenceCroatian-Ukrainian co-production for HBO Europe and ZDF from Germany.

“The Ukrainian people are not only setting a heroic example to the world, but I think this will create a desire for even more heroic stories.” Beta boss Ian Mojto told international buyers on the MIPTV television show in Cannes in April.

European funding bodies are notoriously strict in their regulations, but European manufacturers have found creative ways to exploit regulatory loopholes to divert support towards Ukrainian products. The Polish Film Fund allows 20% of its grant to be spent outside Poland, funds that can be spent on Ukrainian filmmakers. In Luxembourg, this figure is 40 percent. The French CNC has started accepting applications for funding from French manufacturers to be part of Ukrainian writers. And the Belgian tax haven is used to organize co-production with Ukrainian creatives.

antonio lukic Luxembourg, Luxembourgwhich will compete in the Venice Horizons section this year and which Celluloid Dreams sells worldwide, has received post-production support from Sweden’s Gothenburg Film Festival.

Lukich is currently one of four Ukrainian directors visiting Gothenburg for a three-month residency. The festival, with support from the Swedish Institute and the Swedish Postal Code Foundation, on Thursday announced a new scheme granting US$7,100 (75,000 SEK) in donations to Ukrainian filmmakers to develop their next projects.

“This kind of support is very important, and it’s an honor to be mentioned with these organizations,” says Lukic, proudly showing off his Gothenburg Festival sweatshirt. “Obviously, it is more important for Ukraine to spend money now than on movies, weapons and medicine. That is why it is very important to have these islands of support that can contribute to the survival of Ukrainian culture.”

Luxembourg, LuxembourgA personal drama about twin brothers and their relationship with their absent father, it takes place before the war and has nothing to do with the current conflict.

“I think fiction is probably not the way forward for Ukrainian filmmakers right now because it’s too expensive and because the reality of Ukraine seems to make documentaries more relevant,” says Lukich.

In fact, the other two Ukrainian films shown in Venice are non-fiction: Evgeny Afinevsky Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s fight for freedom s Kyiv trial From the famous Ukrainian director Sergey Loznitsa (Baby year. context, donbas). Both projections are not competitive. The first is directly related to the ongoing conflict. The latest are the Kyiv Trials, the Show Trials of 1946 and the public executions of German war criminals by the Soviet Union in Ukraine. but Kyiv trial Loznica was planned long before the February 24 invasion, note today’s “shocking” parallels.

“The same things, the same crimes are being committed now, in the same places in Ukraine,” says Loznitsa. “The circumstances of the current war are very similar to what we see and hear in this film.”

Loznica is currently filming a documentary about the ongoing conflict, tentatively titled invasionThe premiere is scheduled for next year.

“I am interested in how the war affects and transforms Ukrainian society,” he says, “and I also look at how war crimes are investigated in Ukraine. Is it really possible to bring the perpetrators to justice?’

For Ukrainian filmmakers, the struggle to continue producing and releasing films is primarily about the struggle to preserve Ukrainian national identity in the face of Russia’s attempts to culturally and militarily destroy their country.

“We are at war because we want to be an independent country, but it is also about culture and language,” said director Marina Er Gorbach.Klondike) at the Sarajevo CineLink Sarajevo Film Festival industry event earlier this month. “We want to be Ukrainians. Culture is the reason we had this war… and why we made it [to make culture] We need money! “