Generation Euromaidan – Sehnsucht nach Demokratie
BEYOND REVOLUTION – FIGHTING FOR DEMOCRACY
Filmmaker Kristof Gerega has been following the work of Svitlana Zalishchuk, Serhiy Leshchenko and Mustafa Nayyem since 2016 and has been filming them since 2017; three investigative journalists who decided to go into politics and run for parliament. The film gives fascinating insights into the trio’s fight for a higher proportion of women in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, into the disappointed hopes placed in president Petro Poroshenko, who was elected shortly after the Euromaidan revolution, into the nail-biting moment when the anti-corruption law was passed and into the gradual understanding that the influence of the post-Soviet mentality on political culture can only be changed with a great deal of patience. With the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a new situation has arisen. The film describes the protagonists' experiences with the war. Insights into the parliamentary heart of a young democracy.
This film is part of the Ukranian Day at FilmFestival Cottbus.
Kristof Gerega, Inga Pylypchuk
Anton Yaremchuk
Danylo Okulov
Damian Scholl
Schuldenberg Films, Weltfilm and ZDF
Kristof Gerega - The Berlin filmmaker Kristof Gerega (*1981) grew up in Poland and Germany. After graduating in acting from the Bern University of the Arts, he worked for film and television and in theaters in Switzerland, Germany and Poland. As part of the artist collective IN KARMAGEWITTERN he regularly stayed in London. During his studies of Philosophy, Social Sciences and European Ethnology at the Humboldt University in Berlin, he developed his first cinematic ideas and began to realize them. His first documentary feature film NICHT MEHR UNSERE HEIMAT (2016) was shown at international film festivals and on Polish TVP. Since 2013 he has been the managing director of the Berlin-based production company SCHULDENBERG FILMS. In addition to his filmmaking activities, he gives film directing workshops and works as a (video) journalist and as an actor. In 2018 he was a jury member of the DIALOG - Award for Understanding between Cultures at the FilmFestival Cottbus.The film NEUBAU, which he produced with SCHULDENBERG FILMS, won, among others, the prize for the best feature film and the prize for the socially relevant film at the film festival MAX OPHÜLS PREIS in 2020, and in 2022 he won the prize of the German Film Critics for the best debut film.His latest feature film as main producer is the film PIAFFE by Ann Oren, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM).