Ukrainian movie crew holds campaign at Venice Film Festival to draw attention to prisoners of war
The world premiere of a documentary "Songs of Slow Burning Earth" by director Olha Zhurba took place on 4 September at the 81st Venice Film Festival. Before the premiere, the crew of the movie held a campaign at the red carpet to attract the attention of the public to Ukrainian civilian and military prisoners of war held captive by Russia.
The team led by Olha Zhurba appeared dressed in clothes with embroidery depicting the distance from the Lido Island to eight different places of detention, where the Russians hold Ukrainians.
"We wanted to remind the public about horrific conditions in the places of detention, illegitimate court cases and falsified accusations and about tortures and death. About everything that Russia, a terrorist state, is still committing with impunity against people who should not have been there at all," Zhurba said.
Alisa Liubomska, a Ukrainian multi-disciplinary artist and designer, devised the format of the future embroidery. "I chose hand embroidery, which makes each letter unique, and the text looks like it is written by hand. It is similar to what people write in letters, which is often the only way to keep in touch with the prisoners of war, even if it's not certain. Moreover, embroidery is our cultural code and such elements are an additional opportunity to say who we are and to show that it is a part of our culture," she explained.
Besides the film crew, several real-life protagonists of the movie arrived in Venice to present it as well: Hanna Vasyk, art-manager, who in June 2023 became a combat medic of the evacuation brigade of the 78th Separate Air Assault Regiment Hertz and is now engaged in recruitment at the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; Mykola Hradnov-Savytskyi, actor of Dykyi Teatr (Wild Theatre) and the Centre of Modern Art Dakh (Roof), who joined the National Guard of Ukraine as a UAV-operator in 2022, was severely injured in March 2024 and is now undergoing prosthetics in Superhumans Center; Mykhailo Puryshev, businessman from the occupied city of Mariupol, who in March-April 2022 helped thousands of Ukrainians flee the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and is now equipping the invincibility centres in frontline territories of Ukraine. [Invincibility centres are heated premises stocked with food and power banks to assist residents facing hardships due to power cuts - ed.]
Hanna Vasyk noted at a briefing before the premiere that "it is important to watch this movie to realise the horrors of the war". Mykhailo Puryshev added that the film shows how hard it really is to save people in times of war. Mykola Hradnov-Savytskyi revealed that for him the movie is very valuable because it "can show the next generations of soldiers, volunteers and veterans who demonstrate that life goes on".
About the movie Songs of Slow Burning Earth
About the movie Songs of Slow Burning Earth is an audiovisual diary of Ukraine's plunge into the abyss of the full-scale war. It was filmed during the first two years of the full-scale Russian invasion.
Director Olha Zhurba (Outside and Dad’s Sneakers) shows places, people, rare dialogues and sounds and silence, which reflect the chronology of normalisation of the feeling of war in society.
About the 81st Venice Film Festival
The 81st Venice Film Festival is held in Italy from 28 August to 7 September.
This year’s jury is led by French actress Isabelle Huppert. Other members of the jury are James Gray, an American film director; Andrew Haigh, an English film director; Agnieszka Holland, a Polish film director; Kleber Mendonça Filho, a Brazilian film director, producer and film critic; Abderrahmane Sissako, a Mauritanian film director; Giuseppe Tornatore, an Italian film director; Julia von Heinz, a German film director; and Zhang Ziyi, a Chinese actress.
The 81st festival was opened by the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice movie by Tim Burton. On the agenda are new films by Todd Phillips, Pedro Almodóvar, Luca Guadagnino and Pablo Larraín. Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Nicole Kidman, George Clooney, Monica Belucci, Jude Law, Adrien Brody, Cate Blanchett and others came to the red carpet to present the movies they starred in.
This year, two Ukrainian movies were included in the programme of the Venice Film Festival: a drama Honeymoon by Zhanna Ozirna and a documentary by Olha Zhurba Songs of Slow Burning Earth.
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