Ukrainian filmmakers renew call for boycott of Russian films

nme.com:

seven Ukranian filmmakers urged for a cultural boycott of Russia, claiming that it would be “an attempt to cleanse the world of the propaganda of a terrorist state”.Statements were released by several filmmakers including Volcano director Roman Bondarchuk, Valentyn Vasyanovych (Atlantis) and Nariman Aliev (Homeward) explaining their reasoning.At Visions du Réel, producer Illia Gladshtein and director Nadia Parfan, whose film Heat Singers screened at the festival in 2019, sat on the panel.

They were joined by Maksim Nakonechnyi, whose debut film Butterfly Vision will show at Cannes next month, and photographer-director Artem Iurchenko (Cursed Days, 2018).Nakonechnyi has been shooting in Ukraine since the first days of the war in February.

Parfan returned from an artist’s residence in Egypt in the wake of Russia’s invasion to document what was happening in her country [via Variety].Paris-based Iurchenko, meanwhile, has been traveling across Europe in his car since the start of the war, helping to transport refugees, equipment, medical and humanitarian aid to and from Ukraine.The panel guests gave much focus to what they described as Russia’s post-colonial narrative.“This is a war of censors, a very illustrative post-truth war where the enemy’s side has its own truth which it has been making up for a long time,” Nakonechnyi said.“It’s not just a war of weapons but of narratives and ideas.

That’s why people who create censors are the top enemies of Russia.”Asked whether images were the “tools of war” as expressed by US cinematographer Kirsten Johnson during a masterclass at the festival earlier in the day, Nakonechnyi answered: “They are one of the main tools – images and words, of course.“It’s not the images themselves but.