Section: What´s left?

Yevrodonbas

EURODONBAS

Kornii Hrytsiuk
UA, 2022, 73 Min

Ostheim, Liebenthal, New York, Blumenfeld, Bunge, Marienthal; did you suspect that you would find traces of these places in the Donbas? Or that the today heavily-contested region was once settled by 10,000 Belgians and was known as the 10th province of Belgium? A multifaceted exploration of the early history of industrialisation in eastern Ukraine achieved thanks to the efforts of Belgian, German, Welsh and American entrepreneurs.

Director Kornii Hrytsiuk, himself born in Donetsk, shows the European heritage of Mariupol, Lysychansk, Druzhivka and New York. And explains that Donetsk was formerly called Yuzhivka, named after the industrialist John Hughes, who was the first to process the abundant rare mineral resources to be found there. He follows in the footsteps of the numerous migrant workers who worked in the factories here, were often exploited and made Mariupol the liveliest city in the region. Hrytsiuk says the following about his film: “In our film, we show the unique architectural pieces of Donbas, such as the ‘Belgian quarter’ of Lysychansk, which won the Belgian Prize for the best architectural heritage of Belgium abroad in 2018. We show interesting French buildings in Druzhkivka and German ones in New York village. […] After the revolution of 1917, and the Soviet’s rise to power, the factories were taken from the European and North American settlers and nationalized, effectively destroying the memory of European history there. Since February 24th, 2022, Russian troops have been continuing in their efforts to sabotage these buildings of European heritage, finalizing what their ancestors did not have time to do during the Soviet Union.”

Kammerbühne Serienlounge: Original version with engl. subtitles
Glad-House/Obenkino: Original version with English subtitles

This film is part of the Ukranian Day at FilmFestival Cottbus.

Drehbuch
Kornii Hrytsiuk | Anna Palenchuk
Kamera
Bohdan Kinashchuk
Ton
Vasyl Yavtushenko
Schnitt
Kornii Hrytsiuk
Musik
Anton Dehtiarov
Produzent
ALLA ZAGAYKEVYCH
Produktion
435 FILMS
Kornii Hrytsiuk

Kornii Hrytsiuk - Ukrainian film director and screenwriter. Kornii has been active in the film industry since 2011 and made several short and feature-length films that participated in international film festivals and won awards. His independent debut film "2020#desertedcountry" premiered in 2018 - a mockumentary about how almost all Ukrainians left their country. His following documentary from 2020, "Train: Kyiv-War," is about passengers on a night train connecting Kyiv to a war zone in eastern Ukraine. Kornii has just completed his third documentary, "Eurodonbas," with support from the Ukrainian State Film Agency and the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine (production company "435 FILMS"). Kornii also produced an audio series about the Kurenivka mudslide in Kyiv and the outstanding Ukrainian soccer coach Valery Lobanovsky in 2021.