In October 2022 MIRAGE – Art of the Real Festival in Oslo opened its second edition with In Spring, a joyful, lyrical, silent symphony depicting Kyiv in 1929. The film was screened with a new live score composed by Roksana Smirnova (piano) & Misha Kalinin (electric guitar/effects), a couple from Odessa, Ukraine.
As a freelance documentary advisor, festival curator and programmer at MIRAGE I was deeply impressed by the humanistic modernism of the film and deeply touched by the whole immersive live music experience.
Furthermore, it was an experience that made me determined to curate this unique cine-concert as an ongoing fundraiser for Ukraine across European documentary festivals in 2023. On February 5 In Spring will be screened during Docpoint (Helsinki) and the smaller satellite festival Docpoint Tallinn (February 4) to raise funds for the temporarily postponed Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, which will resume after Ukraine’s much wished for victory.
It is my hope and determination that more and more festivals will programme this wonderful film to raise even more funds both for Docudays and for the brave and resilient Ukrainian filmmaking community. (For details how, see below)
In Spring was made by art house doc pioneer Mikhail Kaufman, who was not only the younger brother of the great Dziga Vertov but also his cinematographer. Mikhail was, like his illustrious sibling, a great innovator and daredevil, shooting from planes and beneath trains. There was yet another extremely talented brother, Boris Kaufman, who shot L’Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934) and On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954). After Vertov’s groundbreaking film Man with A Movie Camera the brothers split up over artistic differences.
Mikhail shot and completed In Spring in and around Kyiv, where he often used hidden cameras. The film had been long lost but was found in EYE in Amsterdam in 2005. It is now part of The Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre (Dovzhenko Centre) which is the largest Ukrainian film archive with an extensive collection that includes 7,000 feature films, documentaries, Ukrainian and foreign animated films and thousands of archival records from the history of Ukrainian cinema.
For Business Doc Europe I spoke with Roksana and Misha, two gentle and soft spoken musicians who are currently residing in Lucerne, Switzerland. Both grew up in Odessa, where they trained as professional musicians, got married 11 years ago and lived in China for five years before coming back to Kyiv. A few months after the war began they moved to Lucerne. The pair perform all over the world but secured a solid new base in Switzerland, thanks to the wonderful people they met and the lively and favourable music scene.
Regretfully I have never been to Ukraine myself, so I first ask them what Odessa is like. Immediately they beam with excitement and tell me that “Odessa is the best city, a melting pot known for its international spirit. It is a modern port city at the Black Sea coast, with lots of connections and lots of culture too, partly thanks to its rich Jewish heritage. They have great vegetables, fruit, fish and the cuisine is great. It really is a city like Nice or Barcelona!’
According to Roksana and Misha some European audiences confessed that they had no idea that “Ukraine in 1929 was already such a modern, European country,” but the film aptly shows how early Kyiv is a dynamic and exciting capital. They laugh again when they tell of “some friends of theirs who visited Odessa for the first time who thought that all housing would simply consist of Soviet barracks.” For them it is very important that European audiences know that Kyiv was already an important and enlightened European city nearly one hundred years ago.
Another modern component of In Spring is the use of fast-paced editing, unusual high and low angles, superimpositions, abstractions, stop motion techniques, split screens and huge contrasts in the frame. It documents how Kyiv resourcefully grapples with the transition from winter to spring, fighting floods, reclaiming the streets. We see young and old people, working hard, cleaning up, moving around, playing, smiling, dancing, doing all kinds of sports, and we even see a surreal fragment in which a young man rides a bicycle backwards while playing an accordion. Many parallels are drawn with nature too; we see many animals also waking up from the cold and starting spring anew. Although religion did not have much of a place in Soviet Kyiv, we even see priests and a church procession in the film. In Spring simply unveils a resilient humanity and joy to be alive and centres much less on the impressive technological progress of the time, like many propagandistic Soviet films of that time demonstrated.
Misha stresses that the film is about normal life “here and now.” Both concur that this makes the film timeless. When they started to devise the music they “really understood the concept of the film,” and aimed to follow its inherently strong dynamics and effective dramaturgical structure. Although it was a “long and complex process to do so, now they even improvise some parts of the film, depending on where they are, and what the vibe is.” Their musical approach is broad, creating at times sonorous and impressionistic soundscapes, and they embrace classical, jazz and folk music in their score.
Speaking about the war they fall silent, but not for long. Suddenly I face two fierce Ukrainian warriors, as they are 100% sure Ukraine will win this war. What the war ignited in them, as well as many other Ukrainians, was a need to completely reassess Ukrainian culture. Before February 24 2022, they had hardly realised the extent of their country’s colonisation by Russia, but the war made very clear the need to separate themselves forever from their oppressive neighbour. They feel that the Russians need Ukraine in order to be a “whole empire again,”’ while Kyiv is actually much older than any city in Russia. The Ukrainian capital is one of the oldest cities in Europe – founded in 482 – while Moscow was founded in 1147.
The war gives them pain, sadness and stress, but also strength and courage, and a profound commitment to expressing their own roots to European audiences. They also indicate that they are happy that we reached out to support them, and that they want to offer live accompaniment to In Spring at future festivals, as well as the silent films of Vertov, Joris Ivens and other filmmakers too, to help raise funds for Ukraine.
Currently, other spring and summer festivals, such as DOK.fest München, are considering hosting this fundraiser. If you also want to support Docudays UA, Ukrainian culture and filmmakers you can find my contact details on e u R O P Edoconsultancy or visit the Docudays UA website, where you find different ways to support them. For more info on the musicians, see Misha Kalinin and Roksana Smirnova.
The Docpoint cine-concert of In Spring in Tallinn is on the 4th of February at 17:00 at Kumu Art Museum and in Helsinki on the 5th of February at 18.00 in the Savoy-theatre.
I would like to thank Egil Håskjold Larsen, Racha Helen Larsen, Igor Shaytanov, Outi Rousu, Inka Achté, Filipp Kruusvall and Nick Cunningham for their contributions. Upcoming In Spring cine-concerts are curated by MIRAGE and Martijn te Pas. The film rights are with the Dovzhenko Centre.
Thank you, Martijn te Pas
