Ukrainian movie enters short film contest of the Cannes festival
MARIIA KABATSII, staff author for Ukrainska Pravda.Culture, 26 April 2023
As It Was, the film by Ukrainian director Anastasiia Solonevych and Polish director Damian Kocur, has been selected for the main contest of short films of the 76th Cannes Film Festival. The festival will be held from 16 May to 27 May 2023.
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It is in Cannes where the world premiere of the film will take place. As It Was is about coming home for the first time since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The events in the short film unfold in the winter of 2023 in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Lera, the main character, who has lived in Berlin for almost a year, comes back home for the first time since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. In Kyiv, she meets her friend Kyrylo, and they spend a day together like they used to before the full-scale war began.
Valeriia Berezovska and Kyrylo Zemlianyi starred in this short film.
Anastasiia Solonevych, the director, shared the good news on Facebook and remarked that since 24 February 2022, she has been writing down her observations and capturing her experience. In November 2022, after a conversation with Damian Kocur she came up with an idea for the movie.
"On 16 December, we talked on the phone and said: "Yes, let’s shoot this film." We were in Kyiv on 3 January already. Valeriia portrayed my experience as well as her own, as well as the experience of many other Ukrainians who had left home and came back for the first time since the beginning of the war," the director added.
Along with As It Was, 11 other short films from 12 countries – Argentina, Columbia, Spain, the US, France, Hungary, Indonesia, Iceland, Norway, the UK, Poland and Ukraine – were selected for the contest. The winner will be announced on 27 May.
Such long-awaited films as Killers of the Flower Moon by Martin Scorsese, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny by James Mangold, and Asteroid City by Wes Anderson will be presented at the festival.
Ruben Östlund, a Swedish director, whose satirical comedy Triangle of Sadness won the Cannes Festival last year, was chosen as the head of the jury.
The 76th Festival will be opened by a historical drama The Favorite starring Johnny Depp.
In the Rearview, the documentary by Polish director Maciek Hamela will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival as well. The documentary reveals the story of evacuation of Ukrainian refugees after the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
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