The opening of the “New wave of Ukrainian cinema” in Paris

From 5 to 10 April 2019, the Fund Igor Yankovsky and the State Agency of Ukraine for the movie held in film festival Paris Nouvelle vague du cinéma Ukrainiеn (“New wave of Ukrainian cinema”).

The festival, which aroused great interest among the French public and representatives of the Ukrainian Diaspora took place in one of the most prestigious cinemas in France, Le Grand Rex, Paris on the Grands boulevards. All the days of the festival long before the beginning of the session the audience stood in a queue for the cinema.

Opened the festival businessman and philanthropist Igor Yankovsky, the Vice-Premier Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Rozenko and the Ambassador of Ukraine to France Oleh Shamshur. Igor Jankowski reminded about the fate of the wrongfully convicted in Russia Ukrainian Director Oleg Sentsov and called for the release of all Ukrainian prisoners held in Russian prisons . Hall answered with a flash mob with placards #FreeSentsov.

“The fact that we have all the sessions in Paris, full house, this is a great success of Ukrainian cinema. We seventh year of helping to promote the Ukrainian cinema abroad. A few years ago we were collected movies to show at film festivals. Now there is real competition between the movies. And it’s great. We are witnessing the revival of the national cinema and it really is a new wave of young talented authors, who deservedly won prizes in international film festivals,” said businessman and philanthropist Igor Yankovsky.

Cinema Le Grand Rex Paris

The festival opened with the screening of the film “the Wild field” Director Yaroslav Lodygin on the cult novel by Serhiy Zhadan “vorochilovgrad”. The film was introduced by Director Yaroslav Lodygin, the head of state of Ukraine Philip Ilyenko, co-author of the script writer Sergey Zhadan, the producers of the film Vladimir Yatsenko (Ukraine) and Miklos Gimes (Switzerland).

“I believe in the success of Ukrainian cinema in General, I see it now. When I was 5 years ago started to work in the state, I could not dream about such success. I was asked why I go to the state that there will be nothing but shame. I think that we all together demonstrated a positive result. A level of development of cinematography in Ukraine has not been since the 1980-ies, when the film industry was extensive. Today we see a powerful movement forward,” – said the head of state of Ukraine Philip Ilyenko.

That evening after the premiere of “Wild field” in Paris a reception was held at the REX Club, where with an acoustic concert of Oleg Skripka. The leader of the group “BB” was performed by Ukrainian and French songs, Recalling that about seven years living in France. Oleg Skripka participated in the festival as the author of the music for the short film by Oles Sanin “Anna” dedicated to the memory of famous Ukrainian women, who became Queen of France.

At the reception on the occasion of the opening of the festival “New wave of Ukrainian cinema” was held the presentation of the monument of the daughter of Prince Yaroslav the Wise – Anne of Kiev, who became Queen of France and great-grandmother of many European monarchs. Businessman and philanthropist Igor Yankovsky on behalf of the Ukrainian filmmakers gave the monument to Ukraine’s Ambassador to France Oleg Shamshura to further its installation in Paris. Exactly the same monuments to Anne of Kiev in the framework of the project “the Way of the Queen”, initiated by the curator Anna de Kiev Fest Fedor Balandin has already been installed in Kyiv, Krakow and Toulouse.
French was introduced to the audience films: “Wild fields”, dir. Y. Lodygin; “Volcano”, dir. R. Bondarchuk; “When a tree falls”, dir. M. Nikityuk. Cinema classics “Swan lake. Area”, dir. Yuri Ilyenko was presented by the performer of the title role in the film Lyudmila Efimenko and Philip Ilyenko, also played in the film by his father. The documentary “First hundred”, dir. Ya pilunsky, Yuri Gruzinov, J. Shashkova aroused strong emotions and even tears of the audience. The children’s session, a film was shown 11 children from Morshyn”, dir. A. Nepytalyuk.