How Far is Close
How Far is Close
Hidden treasures on old video cassettes: In flickering recordings, Inga and her cousin shine as little children - singing, dancing, laughing. These are happy moments of a family that has always been confronted with challenges. For flight is nothing new for Inga and her mother Olga: already in 1986, heavily pregnant, Olga had to flee from the radioactive radiation after the Chernobyl disaster. Years later, war is raging in Ukraine. Now it is Inga who has to fear for the life of her beloved mother, because she herself has been living safely in Berlin for 15 years. When the war brings the two together again, a fascinating role reversal occurs. "In 1986 she had me, in 2022 I had her." Inga becomes a support for mother, aunt, cousin and nephew, teaching them German and showing them life in the foreign city.
Text: Tiana Hsu
The film will be shown in the original language with English subtitles and simultaneously translated into German. Headphones are available free of charge against a deposit in the cinema foyer.
Inga Pylypchuk
Inga Pylypchuk, Mika Rusche
Danylo Okulov
Olha Yelisieieva
Inga Pylypchuk
Halyna Lastovenko
Anna Lastovenko
Heike Winkel
filmArche (selbstorganisierte Filmschule in Berlin)
Inga Pylypchuk - born 1986 in Kyiv (Ukraine), lives and works as a documentary filmmaker and journalist in Berlin. Between 2013 and 2019, she wrote from Berlin and Kyiv for "Die Welt", "Welt am Sonntag", "Focus" and ostpol, the magazine of the media NGO n-ost, among others. In 2017, Inga Pylypchuk started working in documentary film: As a co-writer, recording supervisor and assistant director of the film "Anja und Serjoscha" (2018, by Ivette Löcker for 3sat, "Ab18!"). Between 2019 and 2022, she worked as a co-author of the film "Generation Euromaidan - Sehnsucht nach Demokratie" (Generation Euromaidan - Longing for Democracy) by Kristof Gerega (ZDF, "Das kleine Fernsehspiel", awarded the Audience Prize at the German Documentary Film Award 2023). Since 2019 she has been studying documentary film directing at filmArche in Berlin. In 2021, her first essayistic short film "pandemic dreams" was screened at the Berlin Short Film Festival.