historian and sergeant of the armed forces of ukraine, head of academic programs of the liberation movement research center. friends, congratulations, you and i, as usual in this studio, will talk about how culture helps fight for us, fight against disinformation, how russia uses culture, how, in particular, disinformation, and on an incredible scale, we will talk about that again russian propaganda appeared at a class a festival, that is, one of the simplest. the venice

film festival, two ukrainian films were shown there, which i hope will be shown soon you and i will see, but also a work about the unfortunate russian soldiers slipped through, from a person who made several films for rashi today, and now she made a tape, someone posted her in the occupied territories, and she, it seems, spent months with russian military and made an incredibly sympathetic film about them, as reported by people who watched it. today we will also talk about our films, because we will talk with the director of one of these films, olga zorba, and we will also to talk about russian propaganda, how to fight it in general and whether we have enough information state policy to...

beat it, but before that we will talk about a direct topic related to this, which actually has a very big weight, now we have this is the ministry of culture and information policy, got a new head, got a new name, the department will now be called the ministry of culture and strategic communications, and it is headed by mykola tochytskyi. diplomats with many years of experience, which caused quite different opinions in different people people, people's deputies and artists, but the opinions were divided roughly like this: some who did not understand this step said, what is a diplomat here at all, if we are talking about culture, about information policy, about some kind of communication, about countering disinformation , and here he is a diplomat, he was thrown, as iryna gerashchenko wrote, into a completely unfamiliar sphere for him, and...

they said no, for example, artists, for example, denis ivanov, a distributor and producer, he said that he cooperated with mr. mykola once, and said that he has has an absolutely adequate vision of culture, understands its importance, and can quite fit into the ministry, which, let me remind you, is constantly criticized in one way or another, so he can become a minister who, well, at least not so actively will be criticized, well... mykola, more one such trigger for ukrainian society, when he is a teammate of andriy yermak, the head of the president's office, and he has been his deputy since april, before that he was the deputy minister of foreign affairs of ukraine, and even before that he was engaged in diplomatic activities in various countries, in belgium, in luxembourg, and he has two educations, one legal, actually, the institute of international relations, where he studied together with andrii yarmak. even earlier, he graduated

from the faculty of french-english philology, he should be engaged in translations, he graduated from the shevchenko institute, so you see, mr. new minister is partly representative of his vision, in particular, he says that he will pay special attention to countering disinformation, and i will tell you , that there is extremely... a lot of work, i don't even know if one ministry can handle it, but with it is really connected with culture, because the previous version of the ministry of culture, this is the ministry of culture and information policy, was enough, in my opinion, divided and not very divided between these two topics, they cooperated, more precisely, because culture is one thing, informational politics is completely different, we can now mention some of the other ministers there, and here, for example, the previous minister of culture oleksandr. tkaychenko, and

he was criticized a lot, after the mountains, the critics were just against him, he was released, in the end, but he was more engaged information policy, that is, i would prefer to call the department of his... time the ministry of information policy and then culture, but in general this ministry causes quite a lot of different conversations, skepticism, people even say that we do not need such a ministry, but people forget that , that there should be a state policy in the field of culture and the same countering of disinformation, this very often intersects with art itself, and because, as i have already said, higher russia is very... well, very skillfully using culture in order to, to spread their influence, and we have to counteract somehow, i will tell you that at the moment i do not see such opposition, or i see it weak enough, nor did the ministry of culture deal with this effectively, and we had many bright

actions of some kind, but almost all of them were private , well, we also have a state cinema that has no vision of development at all. our cinema does not exist, there is no policy, there is still no strategy, and it is even worse if we talk about international film festivals, and it is precisely on them that russia exerts influence, constantly pushing its propaganda films here and there, which veiled under such liberality, under the fact that you have to sympathize with everyone, and the state cinema now does not bet at all on these films that can travel to... international film festivals, where the cinema bets on commercial cinema, ukrainian on series, but listen , soon we, our filmmakers, will have nothing to go to these film festivals with and something, at least something to oppose russian propaganda films, because we have talked with you more than once

about the fact that films are not just presented at the festival, these films are shown there, they are discussed by the public, they come there , film crews come, they communicate with this one, they give interviews, this is a huge, very important media platform that we need to use, well, judging by everything, at least the state cinema, i think that this site is unimportant and you can score on it, well, we will see what actions the new minister of culture and strategic communications will take, and now we are moving directly to the venice film festival, which is currently underway, this is the festival, and we can now see how the opening ceremony, the red carpet, and the festival, of course, and the information about it spreads through the world media like hotcakes, because it is a festival that

is focused on, as usual the attention is focused on the cannes film festival, on the berlinale, we usually like very much, or many of us like to look at... the dresses in which people came to the red carpet, who even came there, and we choose some funny moments from all these ceremonies, or on the contrary , sensitive, sensual moments, for example, angelina geli talked with his own a fan who is very sick, who can't get out of bed, but here he is, he appeared there and she knelt there so that it would be more convenient to talk to him, and it was also spread a... by the world media, and of course , it is discussed, it is a whole week of discussions, even a little more, people on social networks share their different impressions about the films they have seen, of course, it is important, it is important to consider that the visual component also takes place, and that

any actions, which, for example, our filmmakers want to make there, should be there very carefully verified and preferably bright. interesting to get into the media again. what did our filmmakers do this time? i want to tell you about the films that our ukrainians showed at the venice film festival. first, it's the honeymoon. i'm waiting for this tape, because i'll be honest, i gave such a little advice to the actress of the main role, the thing is, it's about a newlyweds who spend... their honeymoon in the occupation, it's about this couple who are stuck in occupation, they refused to leave and are now locked up in their apartment, they are being knocked on by, i understand, the russians, and you know, at the beginning

of the full-scale invasion, we were very worried about how our film producers would touch on the subject of the occupation, the full-scale invasion, precisely in the game tapes, and... very often talked about that it is too early to shoot films that will directly touch such complex topics. it seems to me that so far, and judging by the trailer, at least, the authors have sufficiently... delicately approached the topic, there is no provision for showing any russian atrocities, it's just a chamber story of a young couple who met a full-scale war in such circumstances, and it's more like, you know, a chamber psychological drama, i think, with two characters, that's how they discuss their relationship, let's see an excerpt, the queue is just terrible, everywhere line, stand for three hours. i'm running out of gas, guess what, we'll drop everything here, there are tanks taras,

uh, well, and another film that was shown at the venice film festival, a ukrainian one, it has the following title, the poor earth that slowly is on, the tape is a documentary, and... it was made by olga zhurba, and she, well, i read the reviews, it is clear that i have not seen this film either, now we can watch its trailer, and it is this, this is what people call we watched it as a diary of the first two years of the full-scale invasion, where we are shown a fairly large section of different people, different emotions, different events, and... i would really like to see this film already from the trailer, it is clear that visually

it is very interesting and bright, and also, well, i'm just interested in watching our documentaries, who do their work very well, usually, let's see an excerpt, on the neck of the corpse, there are chains, a cross, half a heart with the inscription for... wait, i'll be there. well, we will talk with olga, just in a few minutes, and now. i will tell you that our filmmakers are also reporting on betrayal, and

daria posellya, the producer, and the producer of this tape in particular, she wrote that she went to see a film against which there were warnings, it was called russians at war, it's called a documentary by a certain anastasia trofimova, who, as i said at the beginning of our program, shot a tape... for rasha todei, now she shot, judging by everything, a completely propaganda film, like many russian cinematographers, she is now being encrypted no no as a russian woman, that is, she positions herself everywhere as a russian-canadian director, and the producers also call their film french-canadian, not russian, we see these russian soldiers with whom the director spent seven years. those of their lives, who let her there, again, we ourselves

understand, and judging by what dasha described, the film evokes sympathy for the russian military, she also writes that the director in no way emphasizes that russia started this war in 2014, a war it starts on the 22nd, and in general, one wonders how ukraine could do such a thing, after all, this has never happened, that is, again, there is no reflection that russia has been constantly attacking various countries for many, many years, and this is no wonder, that is, aggression in ukraine, well, on sorry, not surprising. and i want to quote daria baselya, here she writes, i quote: she addresses, by the way, she wrote her post in english, she addresses foreigners, this is very important, because... we need to communicate, and while the new our minister is getting used to a new job, in a new position,

we have private people who deal with communications, i quote: you will feel pity for the people who die in the film and for those who mourn their loved ones, and you should, if you are a normal person, you should feel sorry sadness and emotions, but it is also worth remembering that these people joined the army that returned to an independent country, many of them did it voluntarily, as we learn from the film, it is also worth remembering bucha, irpin, mariupol and those civilians , who were killed there, remember the thousands of children who were illegally taken from ukraine to russia while i am writing this, what about you? read, rockets fly into ukrainian cities, buttons are pressed by ordinary russians, or are their crimes less significant just because they claim that they do not know why they participation in this war. and the end of the quote, i will say that the so-called liberal russian media are also engaged in these narratives, and constantly push the idea that ordinary russians are not

to blame, it is only putin, it is only his entourage, russians do not want to fight, most of all to me at this moment i like... the rain channel, which was wiped out of the baltic countries, because they allowed themselves a lot there, but they show, for example, by covering our kurdish operation, they first show these russians who say that putin pamagi, putin where are you , tell absolutely frankly, that their relatives are now defending donbas, that we are supporting the so -called svo, right there. and the presenters talk about the fact that ordinary russians do not want war, it is only putin, well, that is , they have absolutely nothing in their heads, even people who do not directly work for russian propaganda, but it turns out that they still they work for her, anastasia trofimova herself, now we can watch a short video, see what she looks like, she was at

a press conference, they asked her, what about you don't think you're whitewashing the...criminals and humanizing them, she says this, quote: i think it's a bit of a weird question, can we, can we or can't we humanize somebody, are there lists of people that we can humanize and those we cannot, of course we must humanize everyone, this is a huge tragedy for our region, first of all, and for the whole world, if we do not accept each other as people, these black and white stereotypes about each other will lead to the continuation of the war , it will only... intensify hate, unfortunately, that's kind of the way that politicians go, but i don't think that's the way that ordinary people should go, end of quote, i mean, well here we go again, it's not the people, it's all the politicians, it is absolutely clear to all of us that there are some exceptions, messages, but unfortunately, i understand it this way, and not for all foreigners and not in all countries it is read, because it

is simply perceived as the protection of people's rights, we, unfortunately, see a lot.. . many cases when in european and western european countries they protect the military directly, russians, and also claim that they may be victims of this regime. i want to finally talk to olga zorba, she is currently at the venice film festival with, let me remind you, the director of the film songs of the slowly burning earth. thank you for taking 10 minutes for us, i understand that you have... a very busy schedule there, you're doing very important, important things, communication, in particular, but let's talk about your tape first, because i don't i watched, i only watched the trailer, which is still available, i read the first reviews, and most of them i have heard positive reviews, but tell me how you position this tape yourself, how you

see it and how, in your opinion, it differs from other documentaries? films by our ukrainian directors about a full-scale invasion, what did you put into it? well, first of all, i, through myself, as a person, all the experiences that i also lived, and tried to capture and broadcast, transform into the language of cinema, and the changes that are taking place, which i observe in ours. war, and the film itself explores, let's say, the first stage of these changes, because it seems to me what's next, well, if it starts, you know, such a new page in our society, we 're getting used to war and sorry, i'm sorry, i'm

just here from where, and... and about that, you still asked about reviews, right? yes, i think you have read the reviews, well, i have only received positive ones so far, no one has scolded you yet, well, listen, it is not for me to evaluate my film somehow, there are special people for that, it is my job to make a film, release it to the world and promote narratives that are important to us, which... should destroy established myths about ukraine, about our culture and, in general, about the war as a whole, that's why i laid it out in this way... in my opinion, meaningful messages are also important, which i hope will reach

an international audience, not only ours, because i tried to do everything for ukrainians and for the international audience, and also i think what will be, will the film be in the context of today, how will it be pra... after several generations, it was important for me to make a film that will be understandable out of context, will be understandable for people who no longer remember i will, that is, i also thought about such categories as when i made it, when we shot it, when we edited it and when we present the film now. olva, you said that you included some such moments, about our country, about... some possible destruction of stereotypes, can you say what exactly these are, what exactly you wanted to convey to foreigners and in which way? well, here not only

for foreigners, but also for us, i will tell you, because ukrainians have a huge inferiority complex, and it seems to me that the international audience is lulled to sleep by a russian century or 200. and there are several scenes where we are not even realizing to emphasize, i also wanted

to ask olya about this, this film, the russian director, who says that she is not russian, russian-canadian, because daria pysel wrote a very resonant post, so she told me that you too had to watch it all, i sympathize with you once again, although i myself sometimes... watch some russian propaganda for reviews, but it’s all terribly difficult to watch, and please tell me your impressions of this russian film, it’s still russian, although positioned as a french-canadian, and what was the most important impression you observed from the audience at the venice film festival, because we are all constantly scared here that russia is pushing its propaganda and everyone is following it in a row, is it really so, or is it true.. . it goes very well with the film festival audience, and yes, this film is made

to the maximum, and this film is made for the fact that it is aimed at the international audience, which, let's say, is playing pacifism and is enchanted by this darkness, i think. that this is already a topic... of importance, when you you are trying to justify everyone, but it seems to me that this is the justification of war criminals at a time when they are still committing crimes, this is also a crime, and i spoke a little about it at our press conference, because at that time i did not have the opportunity to watch the russian film, because it was after ours, but like, well, i read the synopsis of this director, i also got acquainted with her biography, and the fact that the director... who worked until 2017 seems to be the propagandist russian broadcaster rasha today, who is now calling in general to

genocide of the ukrainian people, is justified, tells me much more than any there, even about this film, or any opinions, that is, i no longer trust, let's say, a person who worked after, for example, the occupation, she no longer can... be disengaged, and of course, and i was asked this question at the press conference, and uh, and then i went to see this film, and purely from a socio-anthropological point of view, that i think it is important to also know not even so much about the film as how the audience reacts to such films, because basically it... it was obvious to me what he was about, but i was interested in how the international audience reacted, and at the premiere i think that

there was actually more. foreigners, and that 's why it's difficult to say here, but the very fact that this film was given this site and the very fact that the director and the film team, which, by the way, includes france, canada, and these producers, just also watched the press conference of this team, and i don't think so, i'm just sure that... and it's just that it should become part of the crime in general that they are now instead of imprisoning, these people should be roughly played, yes, so that they are responsible for all war crimes, this team justifies them, and this kind of talk in general positions, it is even more of a prolongation of the war, and

it seems to me that... it is catastrophic , well, it 's a catastrophic, really painful situation, and we need, as ukrainians should do now, to work out a strategy to make sure that this film simply doesn't get anywhere. olya, thank you very much olya, thank you, unfortunately, the connection is very bad, but we heard you, thank you for telling us about it, well we will work out some kind of strategy with the new minister. let's gather at the ministry of culture and somehow ask the new minister to try to do something, especially since they say that he understands all the problems, i will tell you in the end, friends, that after all, big film festivals, they remain in many respects, on the one hand , russophile, therefore that if you were told for many years about the great russian culture, about the promotion of russia... cinema, because

russia really did it, always invested a lot of money there in the development of its culture, especially for export, so that everyone in the world admires this culture, people are used to it and by inertia respect this russian culture, their representatives, artists, this is on the one hand such an attitude, and on the other hand there is russian money, which it is quite possible to bribe someone, we cannot assert anything, but more than once... we have had direct conversations with our moviegoers, which are, well , or directly bought, for example, selectors there at various film festivals, that is, people who select films, what kind of movie did they take? russian, was selected, and because of that it was shown at the venice film festival, or at the cannes film festival, there are also a lot of russians, there are a lot of russians at the berlinales, they travel around, buy films from different

producers, because... at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the big majors, that is, american film studios, large producers, all left the russian market in unison, and european producers, on the contrary , entered there even more, because there was room, and for example, the french are now making great money on the russian market, because the russians already nothing to watch, although they watch it well, because they just steal these american movies and show them in theaters, but the french, the germans, the italians... are doing great in those markets, and unfortunately, this is what happens next, when money, sentiments, long-term, informational, cultural policy of russia do their job, and ukrainian state policy , on the contrary, grazes the rear, and this, taking into account the fact that we have resources, taking into account the fact that we have a lot of artists who make very good works that make good movies, and well,

we will... i will repeat myself, monitor and communicate with the new minister of culture and strategic communications, friends, i bid you farewell, i wish you a good and restful weekend and see you next week. great return of great lviv. conversations, discussions, search for solutions. the largest talk format of ukraine in the evening prime time. in general , i think we need two things. money and weapons. we did not start this war, but we must finish it and we must win. all the most important, every thursday at 21:15.