16/06/2022 - The gathering dedicated to Ukrainian filmmaker Ivan Mykolaychuk takes place from 15-19 June and will be the first in-person film festival to happen in Ukraine during the war

From 15-19 June, Chernivtsi will host the Mykolaychuk OPEN Festival of Spectator Film, dedicated to what would have been the 81st birthday of legendary filmmaker Ivan Mykolaychuk, who passed away in 1987. The event will bring together the latest Ukrainian movies that have not yet been released nationally and will also present a retrospective programme.

The opening film is «Slovo» House. Unfinished Novel by Taras Tomenko. This is the Ukrainian premiere of the film, which was shown for the first time last year at the 37th Warsaw International Film Festival. «Slovo» House. Unfinished Novel tells the story of one of the greatest crimes perpetrated by the Soviet government: the destruction of a powerful art movement that emerged in 1920-1930 in Kharkiv. The most famous artists in the world of Ukrainian culture lived in 66 apartments in a house called "Slovo": Mykola Khvylovy, Mike Johansen, Pavlo Tychyna, Natalia Uzhviy, Volodymyr Sosyura, Ostap Vyshnya, Oles Kurbas, Ivan Bagryany and others. This intelligentsia, all gathered in one place, was repressed, shot or forced to become party singers over the subsequent few years.

“We’re incredibly lucky to be opening the festival with «Slovo» House. Unfinished Novel, and we are glad that the producers are coming to meet us. It is important to remember that we are fighting not only for our freedom and our territorial integrity, but also for our culture. We are persevering and are actively involved in cultural diplomacy, despite all the unfavourable circumstances,” commented the festival organisers, producer Oleksiy Gladushevsky and programmer Alex Malyshenko.

On Ivan Mykolaychuk's birthday, 15 June, viewers were able to see his directorial effort So Late, So Warm Autumn (1981) on the big screen. This love story was included in the list of the 100 best Ukrainian films of all time. The main female role was played by Halyna Sulima, who presented the picture to the audience.

The next day, 16 June, is dedicated to the memory of Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravičius, who died at the hands of the Russian occupiers in Mariupol in April 2022. Visitors to Mykolaychuk OPEN will be able to see his documentary Mariupolis [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mantas Kvedaravicius
film profile] (2016), which the director continued to work on during the full-scale invasion. On the same day, Parthenon [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mantas Kvedaravičius
film profile] (2019), the only fiction feature made by Kvedaravičius, will get an airing. The films will be presented by project producers Anna Palenchuk (for Mariupolis) and Natalia Libet (for Parthenon).

Ivan Mykolaychuk is a legendary Ukrainian filmmaker who was a symbol of the country’s poetic cinema. He starred in iconic movies such as Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Sergei Parajanov, wrote a number of screenplays and made several films as a director. This date is celebrated in Chernivtsi every year, but this is the first year that Mykolaychuk's birthday has become so popular.

“The idea for the festival came from the Ivan Mykolaychuk Cultural and Art Center, a former cinema that was renovated a year ago. I jumped on the bandwagon and quickly realised, together with my colleague Oleksiy Gladushevsky, that Mykolaychuk's intention was to organise an audience-friendly ‘spectator’ film festival. After all, at one time, Ivan Mykolaychuk was really a national filmmaker.

“Holding a film festival during hostilities is another adventure. We put together a programme and organised everything in one-and-a-half months, while our colleagues, for example, at the Docudays UA Film Festival moved the screenings of its national competition to Krakow, and the Odesa International Film Festival did likewise with Warsaw. We support these decisions, but at the same time, we understand that this does not solve one particular problem: new Ukrainian cinema can now be seen anywhere in Europe, but not in Ukraine. So we decided to put together the first offline festival of new Ukrainian cinema during the war with a focus on the audience, but first, we made sure that it would be as safe as possible (there is a shelter on the premises of the Ivan Mykolaychuk Center).

“Our concept of a ‘spectator’ film festival opens up many paths for us in the future, and some of them are not covered by any existing major Ukrainian film festivals. We hope that as an event, we will now open every year and that, when the war is over, we will be able to contribute to building bridges between Ukrainian and world cinema as well,” said Alex Malyshenko.

Fundraising is also taking place to help the crew members of the films presented in the line-up who are currently serving in the armed forces. The event is supported by the Chernivtsi City Council, Chernivtsi Regional Council and the Bukovyna Film Commission.