The Earth is Blue as an Orange by Iryna Tsilyk
In solidarity with Ukraine and its filmmakers, CPH:DOX has added three more Ukrainian films to this year’s programme. A dedicated programme of seven “powerful” films focuses on Ukraine during this year’s CPH:DOX from March 23 to April 3. The programme offer audiences “the chance to experience seven highly topical films that provide new perspectives on the reality of the now war-torn country,” writes the festival.
The films in CPH:DOX’s special Ukraine programme are:
- A House Made of Splinters (Simon Lereng Wilmont/Denmark & Ukraine)
- Maidan (Sergei Loznitsa/Ukraine & The Netherlands)
- Novorossiya (Enrico Parenti & Luca Genari/Italy)
- Outside (Olha Zhurba/Ukraine, Denmark & The Netherlands)
- The Earth is Blue as an Orange (Iryna Tsilyk/Ukraine & Lithuania)
- This Rain Will Never Stop (Alina Gorlova/Ukraine, Germany & Latvia)
- Treasures of Crimea (Oeke Hoogendijk/The Netherlands)
Niklas Engstrøm, Artistic Director of CPH:DOX, comments: “Almost three weeks have gone since Putin started his terrible invasion of Ukraine and turned our world and worldview upside down. Like everyone else, CPH:DOX is of course very concerned about the current situation in Ukraine, and therefore we have chosen to expand our program and give more space to some of the many brave Ukrainian filmmakers who in recent years have created strong and important films with the conflict as a backdrop. All our thoughts go to Ukraine and the many refugees who are currently being forced to leave their homeland.”
The three new films that have just been added to CPH:DOX programme are The Earth is Blue as an Orange (Iryna Tsilyk/Ukraine & Lithuania), Maidan (Sergei Loznitsa/Ukraine & The Netherlands) and This Rain Will Never Stop (Alina Gorlova/Ukraine, Germany & Latvia)
An audience favourite from Sundance and Berlin and IDFA award winner, Maidan explores the uprising in Ukraine in 2014, which initially started as a protest against President Yanukovych. “Sergei Loznitsa’s film will go down in history as a document of the far from unambiguous uprising in Kiev, where ‘the people’ consists of both left-wing activists and extreme nationalists. From battles to soup breaks and heroic folk songs. The months in Maidan Square are unusually depicted alone in vast, static panoramas,” writes CPH:DOX.
This Rain Will Never Stop is the artistic breakthrough of filmmaker Alina Gorlova, who won the award for Best Debut Film at IDFA 2019. “In atmospheric and meaningful black and white, Gorlova depicts the seemingly endless conflicts that constantly find new ways to recreate themselves, but at the same time she finds hope in the human ability to defy war,” writes CPH:DOX.
The Earth is Blue as An Orange was one of the big audience favorites from Sundance and Berlin. While the war in Ukraine rumbles in the background, a single mother and her two children gather around their shared passion: making small films together. They recreate scenes from a life in the middle of the war involving local people from the village and patrolling military personnel in the artistic process. The older sister in particular is fascinated by the possibilities of the camera, and when she is admitted to film school, she is over the moon. With the war-torn landscapes of Donbass as a dramatic backdrop, the film not only brings light and hope into their lives, but also an opportunity to take the story into their own hands in the midst of chaos.
The seven films from Ukraine will be screened at CPH:DOX’s physical festival from March 23 to April 3. From April 1 to 10 a selection of the films will also be available online on CPH:DOX’s streaming platform (geo-blocked to Denmark).
In addition to the films about Ukraine, CPH:DOX also shows a number of films that take a critical look at Putin’s Russia, including Navalny by Daniel Roher, Holidays by Antoine Cattin and Vera Krichevskaya’s F@ck this Job.
