The Ukrainian documentary project “Listening to the World” by Liza Smith has won the DAE Award at the Marché du Film festival in Cannes. A total of four Ukrainian films at their development stage, namely “Lagoons. Battle for Paradise” by Serhiy Lysenko, “Iron Hundred” by Yulia Hontaruk, “Peace for Nina” by Zhanna Maksymenko-Dovhych and “Listening to the World ” were presented at the festival on March 21.
“I’m glad that there was a full house at the presentation of Ukrainian documentary projects. There was not enough space for the participants and they were waiting for the screening of their film in the corridor. I hope that after the presentation in Cannes, Ukrainian filmmakers will find worthy European partners and co-producers,” the communications director of Docudays UA, Darya Averchenko, said.
Communications director of Docudays UA Darya Averchenko giving the introduction at the presentation of film projects at Marché du Film in Cannes. (Photo Credit: Docudays UA)
In the award acceptance speech, the film crew asked the film community to help share information and spread the word about the plight of Yulia Paevska, call sign “Tayra”. She is a volunteer paramedic who was captured by Russian troops in Mariupol on March 16.
Russian forces do not regard to consider her a war prisoner, so Ukraine is unable to exchange her for captured Russians under the rules of war. She has a disability and needs medical attention. You can read more about her plight in this article from the Kyiv Post.
“Listening to the World” is about an art curator and human rights activist who is deaf and who is trying to find her place in the world and make it hear her. Unfortunately, she and her son Mykyta face the war and are evacuated from bombed Kharkiv to Lviv and then to Germany, where they and thousands of other Ukrainians try to find peace until the end of the war.
“Cannes Docs is a special program within the Cannes films festival market dedicated to the documentary film industry. There, projects of films not yet completed are presented. This program is designed for film directors, and producers developing projects at diverse stages. The Ukrainian presentation of projects is called “Ukrainian docs in progress showcase”. Four Ukrainian full-length documentary films at the stage close to being finished were presented to the international industrial community,” Oleksandra Kravchenko, Producer of the “Lagoons. Battle for Paradise” film, told the Kyiv Post.
Serhiy Lysenko, the filmmaker who made of “Lagoons. Battle for Paradise”, has just come back from the front.
This is what he told the Kyiv Post about the idea for his film: “This is a film project about how people with a conscience and soul tried to save a national park from destruction by people without a conscience and soul. For more than three years, poachers blocked access to the Tuzla estuaries under the protection of local police and members of parliament. They left the only channel between the sea and the estuaries, where they caught tons of precious mullets intended for spawning in estuaries. This brought profit to the local mafia, which ignored the fact that such actions caused an ecological catastrophe in the region – the estuaries began to dry up, turning the environment into a dead desert.”
