In Ukraine, amateur cinema saw rapid development in the 1960s, as filmmaking (i.e. equipment, film, film processing) became a bit more affordable. A network of amateur film clubs appeared in Kyiv, Odesa, Lutsk, and then all over the country. Despite the smothering censure of the Soviet totalitarian regime, the underground Ukrainian movement organized local festivals and awards, celebrating people for whom cinema has become a powerful hobby, or rather a creative malady.
The Black Cossack inhabits a special place within the Ukrainian cinema. Regarded as the first Ukrainian folk film, this amateur historical fantasy film was funded exclusively through donations, beginning with just $2 thousand. Even after its lengthy decade of on-and-off production, the important film was made for only a little over two million UAH, or $66 thousand U.S. dollars, gathered through crowdfunding. Apart from the lead actress, the movie had no professional actors in the cast, marking it as truly a film by and for the people of Ukraine.
The Black Cossack, created with sheer enthusiasm, is a poetic immersion into the mystical and mythical world of old Ukraine, a search among ethnography and anthropology for the identity that makes the Ukrainian people ancient inhabitants of their land, and is a good entry point into the state of Ukrainian movies today.
The State of Ukrainian Film Industry Today
ESSE Production House
Ukrainian cinema has many wonderful films; however, the movie industry of independent Ukraine has gone through difficult times, battling a national sense of inferiority, imposed by the long years of Russification, and often lacking funds, which slowed down both the quantity and quality of movies. In the last years alone, the situation changed dramatically. Creators started receiving financing and support from the state.
As an alternative, they began actively seeking opportunities for international projects, attracting funds from abroad. Ukrainian films are regularly released in domestic cinemas, and they are competing in prestigious world film festivals. A generation of promising artists debut each year with feature films. Currently, one of the most oncoming interesting projects is Oles Sanin’s historical feature Dovbush.
The rise of Ukrainian cinema can be traced even quantitatively, taking into account the number of new releases. In 2012, only six Ukrainian films premiered. In 2019, the number of premiers has already added up to 33. Ukrainian features have been recognized at prestigious international film festivals. For instance, authentic Myroslav Slaboshpytsky’s The Tribe and Sergei Loznitsa’s brutally satirical Donbas have been awarded Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, and Irina Tsilyk’s haunting documentary The Earth is Blue Like an Orange received accolades at the Sanders Film Festival.
The themes of Ukrainian cinema are mostly social. The movies tackle human rights and, of course, Ukraine’s continuous struggle for independence, including the events of the last (and ongoing) Russian-Ukrainian war. Some of the most prominent figures of modern directors making these films in Ukraine are Oles Sanin, Mykhailo Ilyenko, Taras Tkachenko, Akhtem Seitablaev, and Olexander Denisenko.
Ukrainian Amateur Films, Born from the Student Anti-Establishment Movement
From personal archives of Chabanyuk
The Black Cossack director, Vladislav Chabanyuk, grew up in a small village. On one hand, his rural origins spurred his wild imagination, and on the other, gave him a bunch of inferiority complexes. For one, it prevented him from even applying to the Institute of Theater and Cinema, despite a great desire to do so.
However, his creative streak eventually led Chabanyuk to the world of amateur films in the second half of the 1980s. He describes his student period as an entrancing realm of strong creative personalities, avant-garde parties and underground film screenings, passionate discussions and heated debates. The air in the basement of the Vinnytsia film club had a tangy taste of perestroika and future independence.
Chabanyuk’s debut short film was called Crime and Punishment, a pastiche based on Zonchenko’s stories. It was filmed in a dormitory with his friends, and screened in the student accommodation kitchen, on a suspended white bedding sheet. The premiere of the film in the Lenin Room had to be held thrice, as it was sold out each time.
The success of Crime and Punishment gave a start to a film studio, which actively lived among similar amateur film studios, 20 of them in the Vinnytsia Film Club alone. In the 90s, the All-Ukrainian Federation of Folk (i.e. amateur) cinema was created. Dozens of studios contacted each other, and film festivals and joint meetings were held.
Chabanyuk’s story as an amateur director is emblematic. While the professional filmmaking in Ukraine under the Soviet totalitarian regime was heavily censored, amateurs had creative freedom, and as such, the end product was truer to the personal reality of the Ukrainians and did not need to adhere to a surfeit of Soviet ideology.
Amateur films are often pushed to the periphery of the movie industry as something underdeveloped, self-indulgent, and culturally barren, akin to graphomania or a wannabe director’s private diary. Historically, however, Ukrainian amateur cinema has, in the words of DocuDays UA, “often been a conscious gesture of resistance to commercialization, political protest, the struggle for freedom, and self-identification.”
The Black Cossack, the First Ukrainian People’s Film
Black Cossack TM
Unsurprisingly, considering the Ukrainian history of an inferiority complex, Ukrainian media has a penchant for designating any filming station as ‘Hollywood,’ be it an Odesa film studio or a small amateur production. Hollywood was sometimes used as a synonym for ‘good’ or ’legitimate.’
The Black Cossack challenges this notion of measuring everything by Hollywood standards. In its essence, this movie is very much anti-Hollywood, contradicting the very concept of authentic Hollywood and self-proclaimed Hollywood, where everything centers on commercial gain. They make movies for money, they make money on shows, and they sell fantasy. In short, there is no commerce in Chabanyuk’s rural cinema, in contrast to an industry of movies based on capitalism.
There were no producers, no investors. From the very beginning, it was agreed to be a volunteer project. Everyone worked on it for free, as there were no serious funds, only about $66 thousand dollars. This money was to be spent on renting equipment or necessary materials, transport, and catering. All proceeds from the screenings and the streaming platform were transferred to two volunteer centers that treated severely wounded Russian-Ukrainian war veterans (Kombat.UA Foundation and the David Lynch Foundation).
The Black Cossack positions itself as the First People’s Film Project, in the sense of a creative synthesis of amateur and professional filmmakers, as it cannot be attributed to either the first or the second category of film production. The backbone of the creative team was the Malva film studio and friends from previous documentary film projects. Actors were friends and friends of friends.
Even though Chabanyuk had experience in shooting short films, the creation of a full feature film of an hour and a half was a completely different story. The director’s script was written in the summer of 2008; the female lead thought she was coming on a two-week business trip. Now it seems funny, as exactly ten years have passed between the first day of filming and the official premiere in Kyiv. Logistics were hard to organise, as participants were located all over the country. Post-production was expensive and technically challenging because 11 different cameras with different technical characteristics were used during the filming. And then, of course, there was the issue of the actors growing visibly older, especially the children.
Reaction to The Black Cossack ranged from criticism for at times weak acting and the uneven tone to admiration. For example, the official premiere was opened by a message from the great director David Lynch, who immensely enjoyed the film. In any case, this movie set a precedent in the Ukrainian film world, just as it was “edited in the village” and offered for distribution. UFD showed it in 82 cinemas in Ukraine for two weeks, and later, SWEET.TV streamed it on its platform. At the end of summer 2021, The Black Cossack was watched over one million times. Folk and amateur cinema, like much in Ukraine, is evolving.
