CHILDREN’S CINEMA IN UKRAINE FORMS ONE OF THE RETROSPECTIVES

“When faced with situations that so disorient us as to undermine our core notion of humanity, as with the tragedy of the wars we are witnessing, the past can perhaps help us to reflect and better decipher the present.” Accordingly, Pordenone Silent Film Festival director Jay Weissberg announces the presence at the 44^th edition, which will take place at the Verdi Theatre from 4 to 11 October, of a number of titles – like a thin red line running through the festival, connecting different parts of the programme – that are clearly linked to current events.

While the announced world premiere of MoMA’s new restoration of the comic masterpiece Shoulder Arms (1918), presented as part of the retrospective devoted to Chaplinmania, is one of the most eagerly awaited screenings, among the highlights is also the midweek special event scheduled for Wednesday 8 October.

We start with The German Retreat and Battle of Arras (UK 1917), one of several documentaries about the fighting sponsored by the British government as part of the War effort at home, designed to showcase the Allies’ battlefield advances and boost morale. Unlike the other films in the series, The German Retreat and Battle of Arras showed more of the devastation wrought by the massive guns, unintentionally turning official propaganda into a moving anti-war cry that resonates with audiences more than a century later. Accompanying the film is a new score by the British composer Laura Rossi, for 10 musicians and 16 chorus members, which weaves together original music with choral settings of poems and songs from the front to create a poignantly personal counterpoint to the images we see. The accompaniment will be performed live by the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone and Coro del Friuli Venezia Giulia, conducted by Slovenian musician and composer Andrej Goričar. The film has been restored by the Imperial War Museum, London.

Screening immediately following the hour-long film of Arras is Palestine – A Revised Narrative. Commissioned by ALFILM (the Arab Film Festival of Berlin), the work is a thirty-minute montage edited by musician Cynthia Zaven from 77 newsreels housed in London’s Imperial War Museum showing Palestine during World War I, including footage of the 1917 bombing of Gaza. Designed to place the events within an historical continuum, with obvious resonance today, the film is accompanied by Zaven together with noted sound designer Rana Eid, who have crafted a powerful, multi-sensory essay on colonialism’s devastating impact in the Middle East.

Ukraine is the focus of a retrospective dedicated to children’s cinema made between the late 1920s and early 1930s. In the Soviet film production system, children’s cinema was considered essential for indoctrinating new generations with Communist ideology. More concretely, through films praising the exploits of “Pioneers” (a movement founded in 1922 and inspired by scouting), these comedies helped the Government provide an educational model for the millions of children and adolescents, often orphans, left homeless during the war and the Revolution, many of whom flooded the cities. Despite its political function, children’s cinema was considered a minor genre. Because of their smaller budgets, it was generally entrusted to young trainees and budding filmmakers, while less stringent censorship allowed for greater experimentation than in more tightly controlled productions. During the silent era, twenty-two features and three short films for children were released in Ukraine, half of which have survived. The program presented at the Giornate by the Dovzhenko Centre in Kyiv, in collaboration with Germany’s Bundesarchiv and curated by Ivan Kozlenko, comprises four of the most representative titles, including Troye [The Three] (UkrSSR, 1928) by Oleksandr Solovyov, with a screenplay by Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Pryhody Poltynnyka [The Adventures of a Penny] (UkrSSR, 1929), the last and finest of the children’s films by Axel Lundin, better known as a theatre director.

The Pordenone Silent Film Festival / Le Giornate del Cinema Muto is made possible thanks to the support of the Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Ministry of Culture — Direzione Generale Cinema, the city of Pordenone, the Pordenone-Udine Chamber of Commerce, the Fondazione Friuli and the participation of BCC Pordenonese e Monsile.

Foto Credits
Palestine, A Revised Narrative (Rana Eid, Cynthia Zaven, LB, 2024)
Credit: Imperial War Museum, London