26/06/2007

In its second day, the 43rd Mostra internazionale del nuovo cinema di Pesaro keeps looking east: after Israel, the SOS Europa.doc section is now focusing on Ukraine with Half Past Three, although its director is actually Czech. Born in Prague, 27 year-old Tomàs Hodan has a background in journalism and directed some short films.

Completed in 2006, after several years of local research, Half Past Three is a snapshot of everyday life in Ukraine. Stuck between two time zones (Kiev and Central Europe), with seven ethnic groups and several frontiers, Subcarpathian Ruthenia does not appear in the atlas but, historically, it has existed for centuries and is one of Europe's most underdeveloped regions.

Due to its geographical open-endedness, the reality described by Hodan (and by his DoP Filip Sturmankin) shows traces that we can easily find elsewhere, particularly in other underdeveloped regions of Europe. Yet, instead of being an S.O.S, the film points towards a solution: economic depression might be fought with the pantheistic optimism of the locals, whose opposition to change is merely apparent and for whom "having a cow is as important as having a wife".

While describing this atavism, the film also builds a bridge to modernity and states that "the Orange Revolution has become dance music".

Half Past Three was produced by Punk Film with the support of Czech Television. Taskovski Films is handling international sales.

(Translated from Italian)