Bis zum 23.02.2024 läuft im Innsbrucker Kunstraum die Ausstellung FREEFILMERS MARIUPOL. Das Freefilmers Kollektiv aus der ostukrainischen Stadt Mariupol startete 2018 mit künstlerischen Arbeiten, die urbane Veränderungen in der postsozialistischen Ostukraine und seiner industriellen Geschichte aufgegriffen und erforschten.

Ausstellungsansicht Kunstraum Innsbruck | Foto: Daniel Jarosch

Seit die Industrie Küstenstadt 2022 besetzt und kurz darauf vollständig von der russischen Armee eingenommen wurde, mussten die Mitglieder des Kollektivs ihre Heimatstadt verlassen. Freefilmers arbeiten seitdem über mehrere Länder und Kontinente verstreut gemeinsam an der Dokumentation und künstlerischen Auseinandersetzung mit der Invasion ihrer Heimat. Seit jeher gestützt von antikapitalistischen und feministischen Idealen, sind viele der Arbeiten heute auch Beiprodukte ihrer humanitären und aktivistischen Arbeit in den meist gefährdeten Regionen im Süden und Osten der Ukraine.

Sashko Protyah ist einer der Mitbegründer von Freefilmers und stammt aus Mariupol. Heute lebt und arbeitet der Filmemacher und Aktivist in Zhaporizhhia, im Norden der Ukraine. In seinem Film ‘My Favourite Job’ (2022) dokumentierte er die Arbeit von Freiwilligen in Zhaporizhhia, die im Frühjahr 2022 Menschen aus Mariupol evakuierten, während die Stadt von russischen Truppen umzingelt war und täglich zivile Ziele bombardiert wurden. 

Protyah spricht oft von der Wichtigkeit von Erinnerungen und ihrer Unsichtbarkeit. Die russische Invasion der Ukraine jährt sich bald zum zweiten Mal. Wie viele Erinnerungen haben Platz im kollektiven Narrativ eines Krieges? Wer erzählt sie und macht sie sichtbar? komplex hat nachgefragt.

Filmstill aus „My favorite Job“ von Sashko Protyah

komplex: I wanted to start with the animations you used in ‘My Favourite Job’. You said that it was impossible to find footage of the scenarios you wanted to document, so you worked with animations. Could you talk a little about that process? 

Sashko Protyah: I would say that some stories about survival in Mariupol and on the way from Mariupol to the territory controlled by Ukraine have become some type of modern mythologies – unintentionally. It wasn’t about some mysterious nature behind those stories. It was much simpler. I couldn’t find any footage, because it was too dangerous for people to photograph anything. You can find some footage from the city itself, from Mariupol. Actually many people were trying to document what they were living through. But it’s virtually impossible to find anything about the road from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, because people have to go through dozens of checkpoints. And in those checkpoints, it was absolutely not a good idea to film anything and to take photos of anyone. Actually, I was trying to find some footage from the Russians as well. But it was impossible too, because, as far as I understood, they didn’t have internet connection at the checkpoints. And also, they probably just didn’t take any photos or videos while they were searching people at the checkpoint. We had to use this 3d animation, because people talk a lot about their experiences at the checkpoints and I understood that it was a very, very important part of the narrative, but there was no photographic evidence. So we just had to do something about it. I mean, hearing the stories from people felt kind of similar to some myths, but actually, the 3D animations used in the film were accurately created by our 3D generalist Vova Morrow, who is also a member of Freefilmers. We used footage from the motorway that the drivers captured before the full scale invasion. In the animation, we transformed these documented parts of the road into what they look like during the war. And we also tried to recreate some parts of the road based on the evidence that we recorded from our conversations with survivors. So it was like some type of graphic reconstruction of experiences that people lived through. But we couldn’t get any pictures or footage to show graphically in the movies. This is how it occurred to Vova to reconstruct all these scenes with the help of 3D graphics. His choice was about making the scenes look as realistic as possible.

Was this the first time that you used graphics to create this photographic evidence in a film?

We have used animation a lot in our works. But it was the first time we used 3D animation. We just wanted to get this super realistic effect. It may sound paradoxical, but animation plays an important role in my documentary work, probably because I believe that there are lots of things happening to us that can’t be easily visualised with the help of the conventional cinematographic medium, like a camera. For example, many of our emotional states, many of our experiences that we are more sensitive to deep in the heart –   these parts of our experiences can be depicted better using other methods. Not necessarily a camera, because other instruments also have a lot of power to help produce documents and evidence. 

I also read that ‚My Favourite job‘ is going to be part of a bigger film. Is that true?

Before the full scale invasion, I’d already been working on this more ambitious and larger project that I called ‚The Past Unsimple‘, and it was dedicated to invisible memories. Memories that people have and share, but they’re likely to be skipped, for example, in official historic narratives. These memories are often considered useless for these big narratives, but in my opinion, they are as important as, for example, stories about heroes, victories… everything that just normally  constitutes the official big narratives that are easy and efficient to use for the state propaganda. So I was looking for invisible memories that could convey more elusive, more intimate historic experiences. And before the full scale invasion, I was just working on the script. Basically I was just developing the idea of that film. And I was planning to shoot it. It was expected to be a feature length movie, probably even more than two hours. It was a really ambitious project. But, since the full scale invasion, I just haven’t been able to work in my field, not full time and not even part time. Most of the time, I’m involved in volunteer activities doing tasks in the east and south of the country. This is why this bigger project started to disintegrate. It’s just kind of easier for me to work on smaller parts and to kind of divide this bigger project into smaller projects that are easier to work with. And that’s why ‚My Favourite Job‘ is very very much about invisible memories from the beginning of the war. I can already see now that not many people remember those volunteer drivers who just made trips to the occupied territories to rescue people. Or just this experience itself: people who hadn’t had any experience in grassroots movements or organisations just started to form groups to help each other and to rescue people from the occupied territories. It was their first political experience that worked bottom-up. And all of these things are very, very elusive parts of the history. This is how I decided to first just edit ‚My Favourite Job‘. The next one was ‚100% Off‘, which is about looting episodes in Mariupol supermarkets, when the city was besieged by the Russians. And it’s also very much about invisible memories, because it’s not something that you are likely to read in the future history books. Many people believe that it was one of the most frightening and irrational experiences during the besiege. There were bodies of dead Mariupol residents all over the city and people were simultaneously looting the supermarkets. For me, it’s a very, very potent symbol of how people lose control if they live in this alienated society, a society driven by mass consumption. When everything disintegrated, everything collapsed, by mistake, people were just trying to survive by consuming more and more, by going to supermarkets to loot them. I think this was the wrong thing to do at the time, because instead of supporting each other, they were just involved in looting absolutely unnecessary things from the supermarkets, which,  in a world of consumerism, symbolise life and the way you should behave in extreme situations. I just kind of believe that in the next few years, or maybe more, I will also research such invisible memories. Something that we are living through but find  very, very difficult to talk about and to remember and to pass on to the future generations. So this is, I believe, going to be the main topic of my films, probably for the next few works as well.

Freefilmers is working on an anti war multimedia archive, is that something that is connected to these invisible memories and the need to remember things that aren’t necessarily visible?

Yeah, we have launched this website, it’s called Mariupol Memory Park, you’re welcome to visit it. We are in the process of developing it, as we have secured some funding for this year to continue working on the website. It’s some type of archive of invisible cultural practices. Mariupol has been murdered as a city. Even though there are still people living there, there is so much that has been eradicated by the Russians that we can actually refer to urbicide, just like something that happened to Sarajevo in the 1990s or to Aleppo in Syria. We understand that we will have some city in this territory, but so much was eradicated that a lot of work has to be done to preserve at least part of Mariupol’s history of the 21st century. Basically from 2014 to 2022, so many things happened in Mariupol, not only negative, but also positive things. You could say that it was the time when the city managed to fulfill its potential as much as possible, because there were a lot of positive changes and the city was developing rapidly. It was basically murdered when everything was in full swing. With Mariupol Memory Park we are also trying to preserve city artifacts and narratives that are likely to be skipped in official narratives. For example, a collection of tattoos that Mariupol residents got in order to remember the city, or a diary of a person who survived in the siege. These are practices, which don’t seem as important as, for example, bigger narratives of the defenders, or other tragic events. But we just believe that we have to preserve these memories’ unique intimate vibes. We probably need a lot of these archives. This is only the point of view of Freefilmers on what should be put in that Mariupol Memory Park archive.

Is it just the members of Freefilmers who are collecting this material for the archive? 

It’s a very community oriented project. The city was quite big -around 500,000 people, and there is enough space for different narratives. First, we just went and focused on the narratives that we knew better. We had some idea about what kind of projects, what kind of texts or visuals could be created for the website, because  the website works as some type of anti-archive. A lot of artifacts, drawings, photos, and films were destroyed during the invasion and occupation. And that’s why we sometimes ask people to create something they want to commemorate specifically for the website. First, we invited people we knew.  But gradually, our community of people who are working on the website has expanded and now, when planning to add some more materials to the archive in 2024, we have already started getting in touch with people who we didn’t know when we lived in Mariupol. So our community is kind of expanding, and we just want to explore narratives that we didn’t know much about when we lived in the city, but now are becoming super important.  

I want to give one example of such a narrative: You can see this online in comment sections. A lot of new settlers, who came to Mariupol with the Russian army are from, for example, Central Asian countries, or other republics that are part of the Russian Federation. Many Mariupol residents don’t like these people as they came to the city, because of the Russian invasion. Ideologically, it’s a far right narrative. But to some extent, I understand how the residents can develop such narratives, because they are watching their city change under the new rule and new inhabitants. Whether people come to live with you in peace, or whether they come to live with you just because it’s part of a military operation, makes a big difference. I’m very worried about these changes and I don’t want to see my city becoming racist territory.

This is why, for the Mariupol Memory Park Archive, we would like to remember times when there wasn’t much racism in the city. Migrant workers from Central Asian and Caucasian Russian republics already lived in the city before the city was captured. Mariupol did have a community of refugees from Syria, a very, very small community, but we had it .The city was quite developed as an open minded multicultural space for many cultures and for many ethnic groups who could live together and support each other. But now, we can see that a different narrative is developing and we would like to commemorate that multicultural past of the city, when there was no place for racism and when we when we got together without this idea that someone just came to live in our city because because of the imperialist intentions of the Russians who invaded Mariupol. 

Since memories play such a huge role in all of your work: What do you think is your responsibility as a filmmaker and as an artist when it comes to memory?

I have more power to think about how things can be commemorated. I mean, everyone remembers something, and everyone needs to share their memories with other people, with the next generation. I just have more power and more instruments to work with those memories. And I also have more knowledge about how it could be preserved better, and what impact it could have if it’s preserved. I just have more time, more skills for reflection on memories. When we talk about documentary filmmaking, we are talking about preserving experiences with the purpose to reflect more on what has happened and how it could benefit us socially and culturally. So in this respect, I guess, this responsibility just comes naturally. I work very carefully and ethically and at the same time I understand that there are people who are underprivileged and just do not have enough instruments and economic and social opportunities to transmit this information about their experience. It is very important to give more voice to such vulnerable people. Because, yes, there are definitely people who are in the media all the time and with terabytes of information about their lives, they are saved automatically. At the same time, there are lots of people who just do not have this privilege to be remembered. That’s why, for me, it’s always been important to work with invisible people whose experience is  important and should be shared with others. One could see the film industry as a market of narratives and on this market these people are not needed. This is why in this aspect, I believe in equality and more egalitarian principles. Everyone should be remembered and everyone’s experiences should be heard and shared and could benefit the society.

Ausstellungsansicht Kunstraum Innsbruck | Foto: Daniel Jarosch

I’ve seen that you are also working with the Roma community in Ukraine, who, one could say, are also not included in this market of narratives. What was it like working with them?

It’s not exactly my project. This is a project supported by Freefilmers, but the film is directed by Yulia Appen who joined our team approximately a year ago. It all started with members of the Roma community asking us to film them because they were afraid that the modern history of the Roma people during the war in Ukraine will be forgotten, just as it was after World War II. This is how we started working on this film.

Yulia has been filming the Roma community in Zaporizhzhia for the past year and she will continue her work next year because she has collected a lot of very interesting footage about the Roma community’s experience during the war. All of the families she has filmed had to flee from the war and are displaced internally throughout Ukraine. Yulia is going to focus on Roma women’s stories who face discrimination both for being part of the Roma community as well as for their gender.
Documentary filmmaking often works this way: somebody is filmed without it benefiting their community, but is promised that they could benefit from that film when it is screened at some human rights festival. But that just doesn’t work. Normally, a festival does not change the lives of the portrayed people in any way. This is why we were trying to help those Roma families as much as we could, for instance, we provided them with basic electrical appliances like washing machines and cookers. We gave them mobile phones for their kids, so that they could attend school, because most of the schools in eastern Ukraine only work online now. That was kind of our way to work with the community. 

First, Freefilmers used to show their work in very small events for communities, and not on big film festivals. Now I could imagine that there is a bigger interest in your films because of the war. Is that true and if so, how do you feel about this, in general?

Nothing has changed. Most of our screenings still take place in small, community oriented places like squats, small art galleries, artist-run spaces and community centres. We haven’t switched to bigger film festivals at all. And I don’t think that our films are welcome there. And the main problem is not even us criticising those festivals. Big film festivals often ignore the ethical basis for documentary filmmaking. The main problem is  that all of our films are mostly available online. We don’t want to make them part of this elitist culture. I mean, there are a lot of people in the world who like documentary films a lot, but they’re not able to visit all these big events. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a red carpet event, or more progressive events, some people just can’t be there, but they want to know more about the world. And it’s very, very important for us to share our experience. Our first solidarity screenings just took place in the communities that we had already made friends with, because we’d already screened our fields before the full scale invasion in Bratislava, Slovakia, in the Netherlands in Rotterdam, where our colleagues from Wet are based, who are also a cooperative of filmmakers. Since the full scale invasion, this geography of our partners, of our friends, has expanded a lot. But I wouldn’t say that we have switched to any kind of big events or big festivals. We are more interested in other aspects of filmmaking, not in prizes or cultural capital. We are just more interested in talking through social issues, sharing our experiences, watching the kind of grassroots movements over Europe and all over the world. We believe that we should think about our films not just as a part of the film industry, but more as a part of film activism. 

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Sashko Protyah und Freefilmers richten ihren Blick konstant auf das Unsichtbare und die Unsichtbaren in der Gegenwart eines Krieges in ihrem Heimatland. Sie laden uns ein uns zu erinnern. Platz für Erinnerungen gibt es schließlich genug – es braucht nur jemanden, der sie erzählt.

Die Ausstellung, kuratiert von Ivana Marjanović und Freefilmers Mitglied Oksana Kazmina, zeigt neben Experimentalfilmen und Video Performances auch Gemälde und Zeichnungen. Sie läuft noch bis zum 23. Februar im Kunstraum.

Am 16. Februar hält Natasha Tselubia, ebenfalls Mitglied der Freefilmers den Drawing-Workshop “THE FOOD WE SHARE”. Auch sie beschäftigt sich mit unsichtbaren Erinnerungen als Editorin des Zines ‘Zamotka’. Entgegen dem Fokus der westlichen Medien appelliert Zamotka an die Essenz der Hürden und Schwierigkeiten eines Lebens im Krieg – und zwar durch Essen. Essen ist Teil von Überwachung, von Kontrolle, von Entfremdung, von Ungerechtigkeit. Am Ende kann Essen aber auch vereinen.

Anmeldung für den kostenfreien Workshop ist noch bis 10. Februar unter office@kunstraum-innsbruck.at möglich.

| Maya Auer