More than 60 international film festivals and organisations have signed an open letter calling upon political representatives to work together to achieve the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and asking the international community to support Ukrainian journalists, filmmakers and artists as they document their reality in the face of the ongoing information war being waged against them.
Coordinated by the Prague-based Institute of Documentary Film (IDF), the Open Letter expressed its solidarity with the Ukrainian people, declaring that “no country has the right to violate the borders of a sovereign state under the pretext of any lie. This is an attack on democracy”.
At the same time, the letter pointed out that “hatred towards Russian people based on the acts of individuals is also reprehensible. We also stand with the many Russians who condemn Putin’s actions, regime and who make many courageous contributions towards a free and just world despite the risks to their own personal safety”.
The signatories so far have included such leading international documentary film festivals as Nyon’s Visions du Réel, DOK Leipzig, Krakow Film Festival, FID Marseille and Cinema du Réel as well as Trieste’s When East Meets West co-production market, FIPADOC, Cannes Doc and Nordisk Panorama.
In addition, human rights film festivals and organisations in countries as far flung as the Czech Republic, Guatemala, Nepal, Lebanon, Jordan and Finland have added their names to the initiative.
And another signatory, Geneva’s International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH), which will be celebrating its 20th edition between March 4-13, has announced that it will dedicate an entire evening’s programme to Ukraine as a sign of solidarity on March 7.
Film and cultural organisations can add their name to the growing list of signatories by going here and are also invited to make financial donations to support such organisations as the filmmaker initiative Babylon ’13, Docudays UA and the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund.
German solidarity with Ukraine’s artistic community
Meanwhile Claudia Roth, the new state minister for culture and media in the new coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Katja Keul, state minister in the federal foreign office, announced on Friday afternoon (25) that €1m in emergency aid is to be made available to enable creative artists who have fled Ukraine to find refuge in Germany.
”Journalists and cultural workers alike have shown great commitment for a democratic development in Ukraine in recent years,” Roth said. “These people are now particularly threatened by Putin’s military aggression.”
Roth also noted that “in Russia, courageous voices are growing that strongly condemn this war of aggression and clearly distance themselves from it. We stand alongside these voices from culture and the media who stand up for freedom, democracy and peace in Europe. We want to offer them fast and uncomplicated help in Germany”.
This announcement came after Roth and Keul met a group of German-based Ukrainian and Russian artists and intellectuals to discuss the current situation in Ukraine. They included the DJ, musician and author Yuriy Gurzhy, cultural manager Kateryna Stetsevych and Dr. Andrii Portnov, professor for Entangled History of Ukraine at the Europe University in Frankfurt.
Roth said she had already spoken with France’s minister of culture Roselyne Bachelot about other European countries following Germany’s lead and introducing similar emergency aid for Ukraine’s creative community. She plans to raise the issue at the informal meeting of EU culture ministers in Angers on March 7.
Bewilderment and dismay at the current developments in Ukraine have also been expressed by Claas Danielsen, CEO of the Leipzig-based regional film fund Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM), and local producers Heino Deckert (Ma.ja.de Fiction) and Tanja Georgieva-Waldhauer (Elemag Pictures) who have worked with Ukrainian filmmakers in the past.
“Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung has a long tradition of supporting international co-productions with partners in Central and Eastern Europe,” Danielsen explained. “Among them are outstanding Ukrainian films that have artistically processed their own history and the transformation processes since the collapse of the Soviet Union in a narratively deeply moving and cinematically exciting way and brought them to an international audience.”
Deckert, who produced Sergei Loznitsa’s In The Fog and Donbass and Oleg Sentsov’s Rhino, remarked, “The idea that friends and colleagues of mine are now standing in Kyiv with a gun in their hands to defend their city, or crowding into underground shafts to protect themselves from air strikes, is unacceptable and actually unimaginable to me. I no longer thought a war in Europe was possible. I hope the Western world takes the right and sufficient measures to stop this misery. My sympathy goes not only to my Ukrainian friends, but also to those in Russia who are ashamed of their government’s actions. I hope they will take action.”
Meanwhile, Georgieva-Waldhauer, who has been working with Roman Bondarchuk and his team since 2012 and is now in the middle of their third co-production together The Editorial Office after Ukrainian Sheriffs and Volcano, said that she felt “like I’m in a vortex of sadness, fear and anger. There is nothing in my eyes that justifies this act of raw brutality. I can’t believe that war is still being used as a serious option in the 21st Century”.
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