To say that Ukraine has been invited to Cannes is an understatement. It occupies a prominent place both on the Marches and on the screens. The emotion was at its height this Thursday for the screening ofe Mariupolis 2 by Mantas Kvedaravicius and Hanna Bilobrova, presented in a special screening, all the more so since the Lithuanian filmmaker was killed by the Russian army last April. “This film is his legacy, which bears witness to his work as an anthropologist,” declared the co-director.
The surprise appearance of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the opening night and the strong declarations of the Russian director exiled in Berlin Kirill Serebrennikov who proclaimed “No to war” at the end of the screening of Tchaikovsky’s Wife, opened the dance. Mariuopolis 2a documentary of relentless force which shows the daily life of Ukrainians under the bombs, is more significant than all the speeches.
Ordinary people in the face of war
Hanna Bilobrova, co-director and fiancée of the murdered filmmaker, worked closely with her editor Dounia Sichov to complete this film without music or commentary, but which grips the viewer’s heart by revealing what the conflict is as seen from the height of citizens. and ordinary citizens facing unbounded horror.
How to cook, save your dog or salvage essentials from ruined houses: this is shown Mariupolis 2 (so called because Mantas Kvedaravicius had filmed his first documentary there in 2016 during the Donbass war). The scenes of violence, always suggested, are all the more powerful when townspeople recover a generator under two corpses or are chased out of the church where they had taken refuge. And tears well up before an old man who mourns his dead birds and his destroyed house, asking why he worked 32 years to lose everything on March 4 in a bombardment.
Compassion and Introspection
At the end of the screening, the applause took a few moments to break out as the audience was in shock. Fixed shots on the rubble or on the city in flames with the shooting as the only soundtrack predisposed more to introspection than to enthusiasm at the appearance of the end credits. What reveals Mariupolis 2 with implacable sobriety is that we could easily be in the place of Ukrainians who are so close to us. The cheers that celebrated the work reported by Hanna Bilobrova had the power of a cinema that clashes with current events to shake people’s consciences.