Collegium Carolinum,
the German Historical Institute Warsaw,
and the Leibniz-Institute for History and Culture in Eastern Europe
in collaboration with the Department of East European Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University
cordially invite you to the lecture
DR. OLGA GONTARSKA (Warsaw)
Films Without a Viewer. Film Production and Cultural Policy in Ukraine in the Pre-Maidan Period
Thurday, October 12 2023, 5 p.m.
Valentinská 91/1, 3rd Floor
The lecture will be streamed via Zoom as well, please contact
florian.ruttner@collegium.carolinum.de
The war, which started in 2014 and then escalated by the full-scale Russian invasion on 24th February 2022, attracted the world’s attention to Ukraine. A number of events have already focused on the cultural representations of this war. Meanwhile, the pre-Maidan Ukrainian films still remain neglected and hardly have been recognized.
However, the production context of these films can provide an insight into the specific pre-Maidan conditions in Ukraine. A state-directed cultural policy resulted in the phenomenon of ‘a cinema without a viewer’ and in filling Ukrainian cultural space with foreign content. The key problem was a lack of effective and transparent legal and financial procedures, as well as a lack of relevant promotional support.
The consequences were more severe than official censorship. Ukrainian filmmakers were deprived of power and influence in the debates on identity and memory. Despite the tough conditions, they tried to make films – films which are now often overlooked, ignored or forgotten.
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Olga Gontarska defended her doctoral thesis on production context of the Ukrainian feature films since 1991 at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences. She participated in several research projects carried out by Hannah-Arendt-Institut für Totalitarismusforschung, Columbia University, University of Melbourne, and the Museum of Polish History. Since 2021, she is a research fellow at the German Historical Institute Warsaw. Her research interests include the contemporary history and cultural policy in Central and Eastern Europe. She is the author of articles on Ukrainian film production and film industry in Ukraine in the pre-Maidan period. She also received a post-graduate diploma in Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Warsaw and worked for several years as a marketing manager at Kino Polska, a TV channel which broadcasts Polish movies and series.
