EFM hosted a panel this week titled “A New Reality: Decolonising the Post-Soviet Screen.” The debate, moderated by MEDICI’s Tamara Tatishvili and goEast Film Festival director Heleen Gerritsen, also saw the participation of German Films MD Simone Baumann, Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries’ project manager Zane Balčus, Tajik director Anisa Sabiri, Lithuanian filmmaker and activist Romas Zabarauskas and Kyiv Critics’ Week’s co-curator Daria Badior.
In her introduction, Gerritsen stated that, for years, Russian cinema had a disproportionately large place in the festival programmes, “which does not do justice to the diversity of the region.” She admitted that many scholars and filmmakers have been debating about the topic of decolonisation, but obviously it has gained “new urgency” after the events that have unfolded since 24 February 2022.
First of all, Gerritsen argued that it is necessary to understand what decolonisation is. In this context, it means “reassessing the reality and power structures we live in,” by “creating structures that allow for fair participation and representation off and on screen.” She also disclosed that from 27-30 April goEast will offer a 3.5 day symposium, whose programme includes lectures and panel discussions to dig deeper into a number of complex subjects such as the theory of decolonisation in the Eastern European context; the Ukrainian film industry; the coloniality of post-Soviet archives, and reassessing Soviet film heritage, as well as the creation of new grassroot initiatives across the region, indigenous filmmaking and the cinema of marginalised communities.
The first topic addressed during the EFM discussion was the current state – and recent history – of the Ukrainian film industry. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country faced a harsh economic crisis during the 1990s. Production activity and box office attendance saw a steep decline. After the Maidan Revolution, however, the sector grew rapidly – with yearly production of roughly 30-35 features – and managed to gain international recognition.
The mic was then handed to Kyiv Critics’ Week’s Daria Badior, who explained that one of the most important things happening over the last 12/13 years has been the urgency to tell Ukrainian stories, which also concerned other artforms such as theatre plays or live performance. The 2014 annexation of Crimea made the industry enter a state of a war, with the country being under “partial occupation.”
From that moment on, “the separation was on every level.” Even though it wasn’t implemented as efficiently as expected and some studios were still co-operating with Russia, it still marked a point of no return. This also favoured the emergence of more voices from the so-called “peripheries,” namely all the states and capitals outside of Russia and Moscow. Badior added that, prior to the 2014 events, festivals also perceived these industries as “peripheries.” Specifically, she mentioned the hiring of Russian programmers to select films from the region who were making biased choices. Badior said that matters changed, at least in part, thanks to the tireless work of Ukrainian producers who started attending markets, began to network and gained the right connections which helped to overcome these existing “structures.”
Baltic Sea Forum’s Zane Balčus touched upon the times when Riga Film Studio used to be the main production centre, and the shift taking place in the 1980s when it started to look for backing from Western partners. The 1990s were then characterised by a constellation of smaller studios which served as “a technical base only,” with documentaries, however, enjoying a “better position.” In particular, during Soviet times non-fiction funding was directly provided by the Latvian SSR, and after the independence the new government kept actively continued to fund docs. Fiction struggled much more, and in some years no films were produced at all. Among the crucial steps that enabled Latvian industry to grow were the foundation of the National Film Centre of Latvia in 1991, the creation of the Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries in 1997 (which represented Latvian filmmakers’ “introduction to the European film industry”) and the selection of Laila Pakalniņa’s The Shoe at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.
Tajik director Anisa Sabiri spoke first about the turbulent story of her country, which was devastated by a civil war after it gained its independence. “Today, Tajikistan is a multi-ethnic country where Russia’s influence is still very strong. […] In 1990s, we hoped for a revival of our national cinema,” she said, adding how the regime was actively repressing the local language and how the country again fell under Russia domination during the 2000s, opening “a new era of oppression.” She stressed how things have worsened owing to the war and how the decolonisation process is being slowed down as Tajikistan is “not politically interesting” and labelled as a simple “Central Asian country.”
Meanwhile, MEDICI’s Tamara Tatishvili (Georgia) described her country’s unstable economic and political situation as a “roller coaster,” adding how for a long time “preserving a cultural policy and identity wasn’t a top priority in the political agenda.” Nevertheless, arts and cinema in particular always had a strong tradition and impact in Georgia, and even in Soviet times films were spreading “soft, allegoric anti-Soviet messages.” Among the important steps that enabled Georgia’s film industry to grow were “the consolidation of local key filmmakers as a lobby group” who fought for the establishment of the national film agency and Neuroimages membership in 2011.
One of traps of the post-Soviet space, Tatishvili added, is a sort of nostalgic sentiment of “how great it was to be in Soviet times,” when films were “100% subsidised” and one could shoot anything they wanted, provided that it wasn’t controversial and complied with the rules imposed by the regime. Next, she underscored that filmmakers must start returning to Georgia and suggested to create further collaboration opportunities between the countries that “shared much of the same suffering,” including Ukraine.
Baumann later pointed out the federal film promotion’s current “no go” mandate to collaborate or support Russian film or filmmakers on any level, given the country’s brutal war against Ukraine. She also mentioned how relationships deteriorated already in 2012, when Russia dropped out of a bilateral agreement just two months after it was signed and following the appointment of a new minister. On a more positive note, this pushed Germany to look for new Eastern European partners.
The event was rounded off by Lithuanian filmmaker and activist Romas Zabarauskas, who defined himself as “a child of the independence” as he was born in 1990. He spoke about his two new projects, titled The Writer and The Activist, which will be released in 2024 and 2025, respectively. The trilogy kicked off with The Lawyer in 2020. He highlighted how, in his work, he tries to express “his [personal] view of Russian colonisation.”
“My mission is to create cinema, to create art as I understand it. [So] it was natural to ‘pull’ from my personal experiences and the political environment I’m part of,” he concluded.
