Artdocfest is a crucial outpost of free expression on Russia’s doorstep
When The Motherland Aborts You, also titled Country Abortion (Zoya Vodyanova, a pseudonym, Czechia/US) follows a lesbian couple.
- When The Motherland Aborts You, also titled Country Abortion (Zoya Vodyanova, a pseudonym, Czechia/US) follows a lesbian couple.
- One of the women, Zakhara, has moved to India and the other, Lina, starts the film in St Petersburg.
- Franak Viačorka, Tsikhanouskaya’s chief political advisor spoke at the festival, necessitating heightened security and illustrating Artdocfest’s importance.
- Latvia shares a border with Belarus and Russia: these dictatorships are a threat to their neighbours as well their own citizens.
‘Ukraine Above All’
- Artdocfest has promoted films by and about Ukraine ever since the 2014 illegal annexation of Ukraine, even when it was based in Russia.
- However, a global appetite for Ukrainian documentary films about the war means some of the biggest now head to Sundance or Berlin festivals, achieving wider distribution.
- The Mist (Dmytro Shovkoplias) is an immersive film conveying the confusion and disorientation of suddenly finding yourself caught in a war.
- This same dislocation of up to 10 million people was depicted by winner of the main prize, In the Rearview.
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Jeremy Hicks is a member of the UK Labour Party