Documentary series about Ukrainian artists created in Ukraine

Ukrainians created a documentary series “Art in a land of war”, dedicated to local artists who live and work in Ukraine during the war. The authors of the project told Chytomo about this.

The cycle of documentaries consists of 25 episodes. Each of them will tell about one of the Ukrainian artists – painters, sculptors, composers, writers, etc., who did not go abroad and who continue their creative path in Ukraine. Many of them received the status of internally displaced persons, volunteers, defenders of the country, victims of shelling.

The main task of the project is to explore how the place and significance of the artist and his work are changing in a country at war.

Among the heroes of the cycle there are painters Kateryna Kosianenko and Matvii Vaisberg, graphic artists Olesya Dzhurayeva and Vyacheslav Snisarenko, composer Oleksiy Shmurak, poetess Svitlana Povalyaeva and others. DocNoteFilms promises to announce the full list soon on its Facebook page.

The series was created by DocNoteFilms in cooperation with BABYLON’13. Art historian Kateryna Lypa became a project consultant.

The first episodes of “Art in a land of war” will appear in November in public access on the DocNoteFilms Facebook page and on the BABYLON’13 YouTube channel.

“Our project aims not only to tell about 25 Ukrainian artists – we want to demonstrate the strength and versatility of Ukrainian art, its ability not only to reflect, but also to motivate and inspire during Ukraine’s most difficult times”, says the director and co-founder of DocNoteFilms Kostiantyn Klyatskin.

Filming of the project took place in Kyiv, Uzhhorod, Chernivtsi, Lviv, Poltava and other Ukrainian cities.

“In fact contemporary art is devoid of didactics or, even more so, propaganda narratives, so no one expects “military theme paintings” with their severe pathos on the patterns of the 19th-20th centuries. The significance of modern art in today’s difficult circumstances lies in something else: each work is an individual experience of the moment, which resonates with the worldview of the widest layers of potential viewers – today’s and future ones, military and civilian”, comments Kateryna Lypa.

For DocNoteFilms, “Art in a Land of War” has become the first project since the beginning of the full-scale russian invasion. The team’s previous work includes full-length documentaries “Crimea. As it was” about the soldiers who didn’t betray their oath, “Tangible Freedom” about the prisoners of the Luhansk Regional State Administration, “Poliski Teneta” about the destiny of the town Poliske in the Chernobyl zone, a documentary TV series about Ukrainian ATO veterans “Krutyi Zamis” and other works. The co-founders of the project, Kostiantyn Klyatskin and Pavlo Lypa, are also members of the BABYLON’13 association of documentarians.

We would like to remind you that in October 2021, the music album “Foxtrots” appeared in free access, where you can hear the voices of Ukrainian poets.

Documentaries about Ukrainian dissidents Ivan Dziuba, Nadiya Svitlychna, and Mykhailyna Kotsiubynska were also posted online.