VITALY MANSKY: IN FOCUS Ukrainian-born Vitaly Mansky is one of Russia’s most acclaimed documentary filmmakers. Over the course of his career, Mansky has directed over 30 films which have been presented at more than 500 festivals across the world. Mansky has tirelessly chronicled political and social developments in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union through examining the struggles of everyday-lives. The films in this selection blend myth, reality, propaganda and fiction to reveal the many-sided legacy of the Soviet dream.
GAGARIN’S PIONEERS Vitaly Mansky | 2005 | Germany/Russia | 100’
VITALY MANSKY MASTERCLASS Wed 6 Sep | 18:30 | Bertha DocHouse Mansky graduated VGIK - All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography in 1989 and has since gone on to make dozens of films working as both a director and producer for contemporaries such as Sergei Loznitsa. He is also the founder and Artistic Director of Art Dok Fest in Riga, Latvia. We begin our focus with this Masterclass event, during which Mansky will discuss his wide-ranging and prolific career as well as his approach to his filmmaking practice.
Sat 9 Sep | 15:00 | Bertha DocHouse Mansky embarks on a journey to track down his old school friends and fellow Young Pioneers with whom, as a child growing up in Lvov, Ukraine, he pledged allegiance to the Soviet motherland and the principles of communism. Many would later flee the Soviet Union with their parents to begin new lives in Israel, others, like the Mansky’s, changed their names, wiped away the traces of their Jewish family history and stayed. Mansky travels to Israel, USA, Canada and Ukraine in search of those he once knew so well, to explore their shared past and to
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PRIVATE CHRONICLES
BROADWAY, BLACK SEA
MOTHERLAND OR DEATH
Vitaly Mansky | 1999 | Russia | 95’
Vitaly Mansky | 2002 | Russia/Germany | 78’
Vitaly Mansky | 2011 | Russia | 99’
Wed 6 Sep | 20:30 | Bertha DocHouse The collective life of the generation born as Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, Mansky worked with over 5,000 hours of home movies to create this unique chronicle of everyday life in the Soviet Union. Over this archive Mansky applies a fictional framework, weaving together a fabricated biography of a Russian - speaking in voiceover born in 1961. The result is a moving document of the fictional, but nonetheless true life of the generation who grew up in this time of huge change and upheaval.
Fri 8 Sep | 20:15 | Regent Street Cinema Broadway, Black Sea presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of a Black Sea resort over the course of one holiday season. Refugees from the Caucasian republics, Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Russians meet on the shore of the Black Sea: they work as shopkeepers, lifeguards, karaoke singers, or are simply here to enjoy their holidays. The place where all this happens is called Broadway and does not exist on any map, not even the most detailed one. The temporary inhabitants construct a whole world in miniature which consists of small carts, tents or booths closely parked in haphazard rows. The scenery built for a few weeks during summer is bubbling with life – and does not at all correspond with ordinary daily life in Russia.
Sun 10 Sep | 14:00 | Regent Street Cinema For more than 50 years Cuba has been following the battle-cry of the revolution: Patria o Muerte, which translates as Motherland or Death. This mantra has been a daily dilemma for several Cuban generations. Motherland or Death focuses on the generation of Cubans born before the revolution as they near the end of their lives. Whilst their devotion to the motherland remains undiminished, they begin to question the circumstances in which the regime has forced them to live. Mansky portrays a stark contrast between Cuba’s carefully crafted image and the reality of daily life. The film depicts Havana as a desolate place, a dilapidated skeleton, broken up and rearranged with stray dogs and cats, lamp posts as gallows, and angry spewing sewers.
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