By coincidence, I ended up with my family in Russia at the beginning of the Russian special operation, unable to leave the country. This has had a negative impact on my work. I became unavailable to receive correspondence, pay for participation in festivals and competitions. A number of technical and banking restrictions could be circumvented, the rest couldn’t.
Some festivals kindly provided me with opportunities to participate and provided assistance with the payment of the fee on an individual basis. I’m very grateful to them for this. Having a proxy in Cyprus, I also indicated his address for correspondence. All these actions helped me not to lose the distance in achieving the goal.
Also, some contests and festivals didn’t accept my applications, since my actual address of stay was in Russia. I’ve encountered insults and expressions of political position in official responses from contests and festivals. I know that a number of major international festivals have cancelled or denied participation to representatives of Russia as a state.
Despite the fact that art is outside politics, I understand this reaction. It would be strange to assign victory to a country whose actions raise questions and disapproval. This is probably one of the ways to call the country to peaceful action.
I’m an absolute pacifist. Nevertheless, I won’t comment on the actions of the country now, since Russia has adopted a fairly strict law prohibiting criticism of a special operation, which entails criminal responsibility.
But the question of individual participation of a citizen of Russia, a citizen of another country who is simply in Russia, or a former citizen of the country who moved a long time ago and changed his citizenship, but kept his name, isn’t so clear.
Some of my colleagues expressed a rather optimistic opinion on this issue. They assumed that there would be an individual approach and that there would be no discrimination if the filmmaker wasn’t a representative of the country, but spoke personally.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that they were very kind to me and didn’t want to upset me. After all, as a rule, with the name of the author of the script (and I'm a screenwriter) not only the name of the work is indicated, but also the country. And the organizers are not always ready to specify the country of my proxy (Cyprus).
In this case, I can also understand the organizers who do not want to get involved with politics and thus express their support to the wrong side.
I would like to note separately that many festivals have expanded the opportunities for the participation of Ukrainian filmmakers and this, in my opinion, is not something unfair. This is not a pity, but simply taking into account unforeseen restrictions in financing, time, locations, and other technical limitations that they encountered. You need a lot of dedication and love for your work to continue doing it in the face of the threat of bombing and shelling.
At the moment, two opposing opinions are living in my head. One thing is that restrictions for Russians are real discrimination. Because in Russian democracy, the decision made by the majority isn’t the decision of everyone, and it will never be the decision of all citizens and residents. Another thing is that almost any actions that will help to stop hostilities are justified. Therefore, I would like to know the opinions and real stories of representatives of different countries.
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Manuele Bonafede, apparently, you don't quite understand what I would like to know. I'm interested in the real situation in the industry now and the attitude towards Russians or those living in Russia now. I'm not going to look for historical justice or anything like that. I also don't think that all people working in the industry will study history, but they will have their own opinion one way or another. Thus, they can relate positively or negatively, regardless of their level of knowledge. And since I'm far from the real film industry now, I wanted to find out the actual trends.
I don't fault the people of Russia for what's happening in Ukraine. Putin and his people are at fault, as far as I'm concerned. I think it's unwise and unfair to place blame on the general populace. History shows - particularly with the "Treaty of Versailles" after WW1 - that punishing a nation's people for their government's decisions can cause a dangerous buildup of desperation and resentment. I'm not a historian, so I'll leave it at that.
I hope your situation improves, that Russia finds better leadership, and that Ukraine finds peace.
I'm Canadian. My dad's biological parents were Ukrainian, but he was adopted by a Canadian father and an English mother.
I can't say what the industry's opinions and attitudes are overall, I don't always see eye-to-eye with industry trends.
Now that I think about it, here in Toronto, in my union (International Alliance of Technical Stage Employees), we have some members of Russian background, and I haven't heard of anything negative mentioned in respect to them. Canada and Russia have never been allies, but I think we've been more open to Russian immigration than the USA has.
Good luck to you Victoriia. Sincerely. It’s a terrible time for pacifists! A terrible time for fearful young men being sent where they don’t want to be. And a terrible time for those on the receiving end of violence. The innocent, the old and all those in the line of fire. My advice for whatever it may be worth is to use your creativity to find another way of saying Spec Op as that ugly phrase does not deserve repetition which in itself is a denial of violence. Not blaming you because I am sensitive to the situation you are in. To your question, I would say there would be more interest in a Russian character’s (and therefore writer’s) point of view if it did address the current situation in some way…
Your log lines sound interesting but I would not avoid the opportunity to tell a Ukrainian Russian story if I were you I would really embrace it. Hope this helps! Be well and again good luck.
VictorIa,
I dig your cafully chosen words!
But I'm not going to talk politics (anymore) whatever my opinion may be. But I can tell you this. Art should always trascent politics, even if it's about politics. It is a higher 'good'. Proven by the fact that a Russian and an Ukranian film are shown at "Festival International du Film de Bretagne."
If we lose art becauce of war , what's left?!