A selection of films by Oleksiy Radynsky, Vasyl Cherepanyn and Sarmen Beglarian, Mikola Ridnyi and AntiGonna.

Circulation (11 min, Ukraine, 2020)

Three years’ observation of moving landscape of Kyiv, condensed into 11 minutes of screen time.

Director: Oleksiy Radynski
Producer: Lyuba Knorozok
Camera: Max Savchenko
Sound: Andriy Borysenko

Antagonisms of Memory in Post-Maidan Kyiv (16 min, Ukraine, 2020)

After the Maidan revolution and Russian military occupation of Ukraine in 2014, the realm of memory has been occupied by militarism and political reaction. In the context of war and nationalist discursive dominance as one of its outcomes, “patriotic” populism has been trying to externalize the Soviet period and retroactively nationalize historical memory. The policies of decommunization took a harsh and violent form in the city space destroying the imagery and monuments inherited from the socialist past. The film explores several communist memorials in today's Kyiv that are still difficult to integrate into the nation-state framework as constantly disturbing sites of political discontent.

Curators and film directors: Sarmen Beglarian, Sylwia Szymaniak
Camera and editing: Michał Matejko
Drone operator: Oleh Veheria

The authors will dedicate their royalty to support the Ukrainian army.

Antagonisms of Memory in Post-Maidan Kyiv was produced by Polish Modern Art Foundation in the frame of the project “Forming Memory. Monuments in Central Europe” financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage as part of the Multiannual Program INDEPENDENT 2017-2021 and the grant program of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute “Cultural Bridges.”

Mikola Ridnyi: No! No! No! (22 min, Ukraine, 2017)

The main protagonists of this film are young people from Kharkiv, a city located in the Eastern part of Ukraine, whose early twenties coincided with the breakout of the war in the neighboring region of Donbass. An LGBT activist and poet, a fashion model, a group of street artists, a creator of a computer game—all of them are artists or working in the creative industries, typical of the peaceful life of a big city. However, the proximity to the war affects each of the characters and their activities. The protagonists react and reflect political events through their specific relationships to social media and to the urban space around them.

Film written, directed, edited and produced by Mykola Ridnyi
Cameramen: Mykola Ridnyi, Dmytro Pashko, Vadym Smarchenko

AntiGonna (in collaboration with Nikita Kadan): Lucid Skin (16 min, Ukraine, 2021)

The protagonist is an artist who reevaluates his identity. He is into self-harm as a way to punish his “masculinity”. After another session, (documented instances of self-harming action) he dresses in drag and goes to the party. At first, he escapes into the fantasy of safety and freedom but eventually and abruptly brought back to reality as the phantasm of masochism takes shape.

Oleksiy Radynski (1984, Ukraine) is a filmmaker based in Kyiv. After studying film theory at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, he took part in several experiments in film education including Home Workspace Program (Ashkal Alwan, Beirut) and Labor in a Single Shot by Harun Farocki and Antje Ehmann. His films have been screened at Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, Docudays IFF, DOK Leipzig, Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), e-flux (New York), S A V V Y Contemporary (Berlin), International Studio & Curatorial Program (New York) among others. As an essayist he contributed to a number of publications. In 2008, he co-founded Visual Culture Research Center. He was a 2019-2020 BAK Fellow at basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht.

Vasyl Cherepanyn is a director of the Visual Culture Research Center (Kiev, Ukraine), teaches at the Cultural Studies Department of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and is the editor of “Political Critique” magazine (Ukrainian edition).

Sarmen Beglarian (b. 1973) is a curator and co-curator of exhibitions, festivals and installations in galleries and the public space. He graduated in Psychology from the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw and completed a Postgraduate Curatorial Course at the Jagiellonian University. He regularly collaborates with the Polish Modern Art Foundation in Warsaw. Together with Sylwia Szymaniak, he runs the Keret House project and the Exhibition Bureau art space of the Polish Modern Art Foundation. He has organized a series of exhibitions and art projects in Poland and abroad.

Mykola Ridnyi (b. 1985, Kharkiv, Ukraine) is an artist, filmmaker, and essayist living and working in Kyiv. He graduated in 2008 from the National Academy of Design and Arts in Kharkiv. Since 2005, he has been a founding member of the SOSka group, an art collective which has curated and organized a large number of art projects in Kharkiv. Since 2017, he is the co-editor of the online magazine Prostory. Ridnyi works across media ranging from site-specific installations and sculpture to photography and experimental films. His works have been shown in exhibitions and film festivals including Transmediale at HKW in Berlin (2019), 35th Kassel documentary film festival (2018), The Image of War at Bonniers konsthall in Stockholm (2017), All the World’s Futuresat the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), The School of Kyiv—Kyiv Biennale (2015), and other venues.

AntiGonna (1986, Vinnytsia), independent filmmaker, queer-artist, actres and trash model Research’s problems of fears, violence, death and new vision of sexuality. Work in such genres as video-art combined with a future film format and an experimental documentary, music video, virtual reality, photography and ets.. I’m exploring dimensions of sexual fears, perversions and taboos—things that are repressed by the public opinion as deviant traits. My work is autobiographical, but my imagery is strictly metaphorical and used as means of expression. The genre of my work combines the elements of porn and horror, in a way that neutralizes any commercial appeal of both. Here, sexual and scary do not go hand in hand to provoke desire as seen in exploitative cinema, but overlap, poisoning the lust of the first and exhibiting cheap effects of the latter. Lives and works in Kiev.

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