Irina Bondas: REDAKTSIYA is your second feature film after VOLCANO [2018], and is in a way similar when it comes to the absurdity of the plot. What was your starting point for the script?
Roman Bondarchuk: Both of my parents were involved in journalism. My mother used to work for the Komsomol – the Soviet communist youth organization – newspaper in her youth. She told me quite exciting stories of how they needed to write about these Komsomol competitions. Everyone knew that they weren’t real and they needed to make them up. Their editor had a bottle of wine under his working desk especially for this reason. They drank wine and made up these stories. My father used to work for local TV station and most of the time they were traveling from one town to another in Kherson region, reporting about the collective farms and later about private farms. They received food in exchange. It was quite absurd because the news reports were more or less similar, just the numbers were different: how many pigs or chickens they managed to breed, their harvest yield and so on. No one really cared about real news and things which really mattered or affected our lives. I left school around the age of fourteen and joined the newspaper as a photojournalist – back then I was fascinated with photography and videography.
My father took an editing job at the region’s first commercial newspaper and I joined him. It was quite a difficult time, right after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The editorial office was renting a couple of rooms in Hotel Kyiv in the center of Kherson. It was quite surreal because they managed to publish a newspaper in these three hotel rooms that was full of spiritual healers, astrologists and other absurd content. That’s how I spent my young years. And these are the events and stories which probably formed me. We had a guy in the distribution department who was also in charge of writing the horoscopes. When he was upset, he would write catastrophic horoscopes for the newspaper owner’s zodiac sign. When he was upbeat, he would write positive predictions. So everything was made up and it seemed always very attractive to me that reality can be easily created and changed.
I don’t need to change my mind-set to make it so surreal. The reality is even more surreal.
IB: Your film is set in contemporary Ukraine six months prior to the full-scale invasion and it appears that the media landscape hasn't changed that much, although the technologies have changed.
RB: We updated the stories and we did extensive research before writing the script, we met senior journalists who still were active and younger journalists. That's more or less what the situation is today, or at least was on the eve of the invasion. It might look a bit vintage, but that's how it works in provincial areas. I think there are two media outlets in Kherson Oblast which were built in the early 2000s and their policies are aligned to Western standards of journalism. But even talking to their journalists, I discovered that they mustn’t be too critical when dealing with the subjects and people they're writing about, because it’s a small community and a small town. Every character can turn out to be your son’s classmate’s father. Even as investigative journalists, they cannot be too outspoken or radical. They always keep in mind that the community will stay the same, and they have to live and to cooperate with these people. That's why so little changes.
Barbara Wurm: This also refers to your documentary, UKRAINIAN SHERIFFS [2015] as well as to your first fiction film, VOLCANO. Is absurdity for you part of the world or rather part of your way of looking onto the world?
RB: Absurdity gives some lightness into this quite tough and rude reality. If you look at it without this ironic touch, it can weigh you down. I think humor is a value that helps Ukrainians to survive all the challenges, disasters and historical turbulences. I think that it’s characteristic for them, this land and its reality. It’s quite organic. I don’t need to change my mind-set to make it so surreal. The reality is even more surreal. On our fourth shooting day, for example, we shot the scene with the opening of the fake gas pipeline. Members of our film crew from Kyiv were saying we made it up. The same day, we read in the news that in Kherson a big flagpole was installed by some officials to please President Zelenskyy during his visit. They commissioned the biggest flag just to show him how advanced the region is. When they flew the flag, the whole thing fell and crushed the Lexus of the architect who built the flagpole. It was like in a cartoon. Of course, they stole a lot from the construction of this flagpole and in the end, it turned out like a joke. You can find these kinds of stories everywhere. Maybe I have an eye for them, but they are real.
IB: Some of the episodes in your film seem to be informed by real events. For example, the episode about the mayor reminded me of Hennadiy Kernes, the late mayor of Kharkiv, and there were actual forest fires in the Kherson region. Did you refer to these events or did you happen to predict some of them?
RB: You're right, we were inspired by Hennadiy Kernes, who was reelected while in a coma and managed to rule the city for several months without any consciousness, before finally passing away. But then, when Kherson was occupied by Russia, they appointed Vladimir Saldo to be the Russian mayor of Kherson and he also fell into coma. You see, films can easily come from reality and the reality can come from films. It's like a loop for me. It was the same with the dancing candidates. There are probably at least four or five candidates in Kherson who used to dance in front of their voters. All of them were so upset when they saw our film stills, each of them thought that we were making a parody of them. But we never wanted to make a parody of any particular person – It's a depiction of provincial politicians. But so many people recognize themselves, which gives me a hunch that we are on the right track.
IB: You are using elements of different genres, like folk horror, action thriller, sci-fi. How did your interest or your decision to use genre come about?
RB: I'm really happy that you bring it up, as I'm trying to analyze it and to name the genres myself - I really have more questions than answers. For me, it seems like a handwriting. My task is to comment on this reality and to represent this reality as precise as possible. I cannot make out any structure in today’s reality. It can turn into a thriller, it can turn into a comedy and switch between different channels easily. Only ten minutes before our conversation a missile was fired, and three minutes ago the air-raid alert ended. Now we can tell anecdotes about the south of Ukraine from two years ago. I think the reality is too fast to stay in one genre. Somehow, I have to keep the viewers’ attention. I think that in the era of these concise forms, with their multi-perspective, multi-character, multi-situational structures, it's quite natural to switch between genres as well. In the end, it becomes a mystery film.
It's unexpected to end up at the ritual, but it seems also completely realistic to me because the whole eco-village actually existed and was established by a local businessman who used to sell pelmeni, dumplings. He owned a grain farm and all the infrastructure to produce meat and packaging. At a certain moment, he decided it was time to develop his spirit. He built an eco-village and became a local guru, promoting a healthy lifestyle and spiritual practices. At the same time, he never gave up his business. With one hand, he killed pigs and sold meat, with the other hand, he promoted a vegetarian way of life, which is also a bit surreal. Unfortunately, his eco-village was destroyed in the first week of this war. The Russians just burnt it down. It used to be an easy 15 minute ride from Kherson to the Oleshky woods, where you’d find yourself surrounded by this organic lifestyle with all these rituals and singing. He wasn't too happy to let us film in his eco-village. He made us sign an agreement that we are not allowed to eat meat, smoke or use swear words in there. The technicians said they cannot work without meat. All my assistants are chain smokers and they cannot work longer than 30 minutes without a cigarette. We organized two shuttle busses to drive them out of the village to eat meat, to swear and to smoke. We would work at a stretch of only 25-30 minutes without meat, cigarettes and swearing.
BW: It was the same duality as the vegetarian with the pork factory.
RB: Probably. It was very challenging to me not to swear. The ice was very thin.
We are losing our people in all fields, also in film. The question is how many of us will be left after this war and how we will recover and be able to keep making films or doing other things.
BW: When you were talking about genre you mentioned the audience. With every scene you explain it becomes clearer the heart of the plot is your interest in the periphery, not just of life, but also of Ukraine, which has also, unfortunately, become the centre of the war. All your stories are specifically Ukrainian stories with a sidewards glance towards Europe or the West. Do you have a specific audience in mind while making a film or do you try to work on specific expectations?
RB: I can only share my experience with UKRAINIAN SHERIFFS. Because after the film was invited to IDFA and received a prize, the protagonists were invited to the local authorities and received a certificate for their contribution to the development of the regional culture and film. But a year later, when the authorities saw the film, they got so mad they wanted to withdraw the certificates. With VOLCANO, it was already difficult to organize a premiere in Kherson because no one was interested. So we decided to organize it in Nova Kakhovka, in the closest cinema from where we filmed. It went well and we had a good Q&A afterwards. People started asking what to change in order to have a better life. The village club that was featured in the film started a big renovation, because they realized how they look from outside. People were fine with seeing themselves on the screen and they thought that one of the actresses is an actual person, so they were giving her advice like, “You have to marry this guy. He could be elected as a local council member and you will improve your life.”
I was satisfied with that Q&A, but the release in Ukraine itself was not that successful. The only success I had was when the film was published on MUBI – it was immediately stolen by pirates. And then it was shared on these big torrent trackers. It was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times and among the top five most popular films for a few weeks. I then realized that if my audience is not ready to pay for my films, if they are waiting for films to be available on torrent sites, I can be freer with my ideas and my genres, my forms. I can do what I deem necessary.
IB: What reaction do you expect from Ukrainian audiences to this film? You started making it before the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Now, we are in the midst of a full-scale war. One imagines that it can be perceived as very provocative in Ukrainian society.
RB: Well, we had only one screening in Kyiv, mostly for the crew, but I also invited a good friend who has been involved in the war since 2014. He's a filmmaker, but he was also volunteering and now he's serving in the army. He was laughing his head off from the very beginning until the end. He said, “Well, I enjoyed it a lot, but it's going to cause a huge shitstorm in Ukraine.” But on the other hand, Ukrainian distributors have shown a lot of interest and have very high expectations. I feel like it's timely and understandable in Ukraine. But everything is changing so fast, the situation, the attitude, the climate. It’s difficult to predict how it will pan out when it hits the theaters.
IB: You mentioned one of your audience members who is in the army. Also, some of your cast and crew members have been fighting in the Ukrainian forces. So you have been very much affected by the war and it must have influenced the whole production, hasn’t it?
RB: Yes, of course it did. Viktor Onysko, who is the editing director of this film, voluntarily joined the army on day two or three of the full-scale invasion. He got his family out of Ukraine and joined the army, because he felt he owed it to the guys who had been protecting Ukraine since 2014. He took part in the counter-offensive operation when they liberated Kherson and the south of Ukraine. Then his brigade was sent to Bakhmut and he was killed in action near Soledar almost a year ago. We also lost the actor who played the beekeeper, Vasyl Kukharskyi. He died from the heavy injuries he received at the front. We are losing our people in all fields, also in film. The question is how many of us will be left after this war and how we will recover and be able to keep making films or doing other things.
We managed to complete our film thanks to another editor, Nikon Romanchenko. We worked via Zoom. He was in Kyiv, and I was in different places. It was challenging not to see your colleague – I was only seeing the program monitor and the takes. You cannot tell from your colleague's face whether he likes it or not. But then we managed to meet in Romania, and to also involve Heike Parplies, who is a very skillful German film editor. She was also a consultant for VOLCANO, and she helped us to shape the film, to find its rhythm and pace and to make it more understandable for wider audiences. We had some cultural differences and many, many questions from her side, because she's German and she needed to understand every single bit. It was quite a funny conversation. The ritual in the film, for example, was based on the novel "Jonathan Livingston Seagull”. She wanted to know what the book means to us, why it was so important. I told her, this is the literature which people in our country discovered after the fall of Soviet Union, when this world of free market economy had just emerged.
Somehow this book became a cult sensation. It used to be the Bible for Ukrainian business people back then. Because it says there are no limits, you can do whatever you like, and you just need to follow your desire and wishes and forget about everything else. It’s also a link to Western culture because for Ukrainian people it was like a permission from the West to do whatever they want. For me, it’s also ironic because it’s quite obviously not the best piece of literature, but the one that influenced a whole generation and its lives. She said, in Germany, it's just a book for kids and teenagers without a deeper meaning. We had many discussions about certain layers of meaning. In the end, we lost probably two or three scenes thanks to Heike, but we managed to keep all the plotlines, which is fantastic.
IB: As you said, there are a lot of elements that are very specific to Ukrainian life, Ukrainian culture, Ukrainian history that might need some explanation. As Barbara already pointed out, it’s not only the Ukrainian specificities, but it's also very much connected to the Kherson region, a place where your films are generally located and the which, unfortunately, has been very much affected by the war. Against this background, your films gain another layer of meaning. Is it also one of your intentions to create a monument for this region?
RB: It all started with my graduation film, TAXI DRIVER. I was studying at the film school in Kyiv and in the third year I had to make a film. I got film stock and a camera and I tried to do something in Kyiv, but it was almost impossible. We had no budget at all, only this camera and film. I could not hire any actors or scout locations. So I decided to take the DOP with the camera to my parents' town because I could use their car, I knew lots of people, and I could at least do something there. We involved local characters, collected their stories, managed to make one story out of many and finally produced that film with real people.
I then realized that there is no competition for me in this area, no one is interested in Kherson. Back then it was just a train stop on the way to Crimea, which was much more touristic and obviously a very beautiful, developed region. Kherson was in middle of nowhere, just a steppe. I was inspired to tell narratives from there, to discover its stories, that culture, the rituals. Because of bad infrastructure, because it’s far off, people are really special – they believe in a mix of ancient pagan legends, particles of Soviet culture and modern TV-style stories and anecdotes. I think the phenomenon of sheriffs could happen only in this part of Ukraine because it's remote, it's wild, and people are free to invent and experiment with sheriffs or eco-settlements, or whatever you like. I saw myself as a part of that community, of that land. It was much more logical to stay there than to explore Chernihiv or Zhytomyr or any other regional center where I'm also a stranger.
BW: To close by looking towards your Berlinale premiere. You are a very active member of the cultural community of Ukraine. Festivals, as with films such as yours, support your struggle as a state defending its existence and a democratic, open discourse. What does this kind of international attention mean to you?
RB: I'm really happy and grateful that it will be a chance for this film to premiere at the Berlinale. And I believe that the Berlinale audience is the right audience to spread the word about this film and to attract attention to Ukraine. I believe that every platform counts nowadays because this war is an informational war, probably to an even bigger extent than the physical war. I'm sure that Russia is using their propaganda, their films, their agents abroad to draw the attention from Ukraine and to replace it with any other agenda. So they invent distractions just to make the world forget about what is going on in Ukraine. We have now reached a phase for probably the first time in the last two years when there is a discussion if Ukraine will manage to keep up its resistance at all, if there will be further aid to Ukraine. We potentially need to work harder to get across what Ukraine is about, and that it's not an option to leave it alone and to give up support. I believe that this film, despite of all the humour and criticism on how we were before the invasion, will draw Ukrainians closer to Westerners. For me, it's an honest film and the characters are mostly human and sympathetic. I believe that that's the proper way to bring people together.
BW: That was a wonderful last statement, full of hope, which gives me also hope that we don't play the role played by the European politicians in the last scenes of your film…
RB: Well. As artists and curators, we all are permitted to interfere into the life of politicians and to criticize them. I always felt that I'm allowed to point at something that is wrong and try to make it better or to fix it. I think the same applies to you because it's probably the main purpose of a festival to make bring people closer together and to fix things which are wrong.
