BUDYNOK "SLOVO". NESKINCHENYI ROMAN

In the Ukrainian Soviet Republic of the early 1930s young poet Akimov is overjoyed to have landed a place in the newly built 'Slovo House' (Building of the Word) in Kharkiv. Its residents are famous writers and avant-garde artists, including the author Mykola Khvylovy, an advocate of an independent Ukrainian culture. Luxurious apartments and their very own restaurant are intended to inspire the artists’ creativity, at the same time as the rural population suffers and starves. When, however, these bohemians refuse to accept the naive Akimov, he begins to spy on his new colleagues on behalf of his Russian NKVD senior officer... Director Taras Tomenko had already made a documentary about the Slovo building in 2017. Here he approaches the topic from a fictional perspective, as he condenses events and describes, whilst displaying his rich knowledge and generating an ever-growing tension, the mechanisms and virulence of the Stalinist purges. The film stands out with its black-and-white visuals, meticulous set design and imaginative dream sequences. In April 2022 "Slovo House", which had served as a cultural center in Kharkiv as of 1991, was badly damaged during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Text: Kira Taszman
English: Peter Rickerby

Weltspiegel (large hall): original version with English subtitles + German simultaneous translation

Obenkino: original version with English subtitles.

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