Ort: Kino Central, Rosenthaler Str. 39, 10178 Berlin

Datum: Mittwoch, 10. Juli 2024, 19.00 Uhr

Moderation: FU-Studierende (OEI)

Gäste: tba

Eintritt: 7/5 Euro

The short film selection KYIV IN FOCUS – 4 STORIES, 1 CITY aims to explore the diversity and complexity of urban space. The number "four" symbolises the order and organisation of space: four elements, four sides of the world and four basic dimensions – depth, width, height and time. Each of the short films, with varying degrees of intensity, delves into the life-world of the citizens of the Ukrainian capital from different temporal and spatial perspectives, united by the question of home: how and where to live, when to leave, and the consequences of forced departure. In the four stories, Kyiv appears in the plural: through spatial exploration, the city is shown as a place of trauma, dreams and wandering in post-communist realities. Centre or periphery, collective experience or individual history, virtual or physical presence – this fragmentation allows us not only to see but also to hear the city from unusual sides.

The first short film, Beautiful Playgrounds (2016), is an amateur work offering a lightly ironic walk through one of Kyiv's island neighbourhoods. The second, Landslide (2016), depicts post-revolutionary Ukraine through the lens of an underground community trying to build a new society in the centre of the city. Two years later, against the backdrop of a new social reality, the protagonist of the third short fiction film, Goodbye Golovin (2018), immerses us in his inner turmoil and takes us on a journey through Kyiv's suburbs. Nevertheless, in 2022, as a result of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, the fragile reality cracks and we find ourselves in Brussels. Captured in a state of "in-between" – between the virtual and the physical world, between the hometown and the new home – the heroine of the latest short film, I Stumble Every Time I Hear From Kyiv (2022), tells us story of proximity and distance, trying to find words for the wounds of war.

The short film program was prepared by a group of students participating in the film curation seminar led by Irine Beridze (FU Berlin/OEI). The film screening will be followed by a discussion with invited guests, which will be held in English.