The thinly populated Danube delta in the Bukovina is situated at the EU’s exterior border on Romanian and Ukrainian territory. Far from the container ships on the main stream a network of tributaries branches out in an endless reed forest. Warm and cold browns alternate in the shifting light of midwinter. Walls of fog and grey water blur the horizon. Men cut their way through the high canes to harvest the reed. The camera pushes them to the edge of the frame. The strictly limited sharp focus sometimes turns them into strangers in an unreal landscape by which they are occasionally absorbed. It’s cold and wet as they cut the huge reeds, gather them in massive bunches and carry them across ice channels. The work is hard, the voices of the rural workers rough, the daily grind that must be survived is tough. In the pathless, wild isolation of this region, the orthodox faith offers shelter. Hectic and chaotic, buckets and bottles filmed from up close scoop the holy water out of the river. At the last benediction the village mourns by chanting, tightly packed around the deceased – the spiritual rituals of a small, isolated community encircled by the veins of the mighty Danube. Oleksandr Techynskyis haptic film captures the closeness in this wide expanse.

André Eckardt

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Honorary Mention Next Masters Competition;
Nominated for MDR Film Prize, Healthy Workplaces Film Award, Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize

A kaleidoscopic portrait of contemporary Ukraine. Documentary facets of the life of city dwellers in Kiev, Odessa and Lviv. Symmetrical image associations of the finds in the editing: yellow, yellow, yellow. Pink pipes, spheres and circles. Parade and catwalk. Forms and plays with colours and, in between, deadly serious, the current political conflicts of Ukraine in the people’s voice: should the Russians be squashed like flies? Who has the power? Adolescent drinking games degenerate into ugly brawls. Girls are silly and playful. Young couples kissing mechanically while guarding their mobile phones. Naked people on the beach have crosses on their thighs. Dogs are abused with affection.

The tableau is of life itself, in its “humanity and cruelty, charity and indifference”. A portrait of all of us: “the righteous, the merciless, the funny, the naïve, the honest”. The director has dedicated his film to his Russian colleague Aleksandr Rastorguyev, who died in the Central African Republic during investigative research into a corrupt Russian military corporation.

Saskia Walker