The Festival of Slavic Cinema "Borderland – 2005", which will last from September 12 to 18, gathered in Lutsk famous filmmakers from Slavic countries – Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, and Russia. Its main goal is to learn as much as possible about the cinematic art of other Slavic countries and to bring this cinema to the Ukrainian viewer.
The director of the cinema-video-music enterprise Vitaliy Neroda, director of the Dovzhenko Film Studio Oleksandr Denysenko, director of the Odesa Film Studio and secretary of the board of the Union of Cinematographers of Ukraine Yaroslav Lupiy, honored actor of theater and cinema and director Oleksandr Bezpaly (Republic of Belarus), manager of the "Belarusfilm" studio Nadiya Doroshevych, and secretary of the Ambassador of the Slovak Republic in Ukraine Suzanna Slavikova readily agreed to meet with Volyn journalists.
The situation that has developed with Ukrainian cinema today came from the lips of Ukrainian directors as completely disheartening. Per year, 4–6 films are released in Ukraine, which is completely insufficient for the full-fledged existence of a national cinematography (for comparison: in Russia – more than 100). Given this, Ukrainian directors could not survive without additional earnings on television, in theater, and so on (the so-called "dubbing").
The main reason for such a state, in their opinion, lies primarily in the absence of ideology. "Cinema in any country builds a model of behavior that is subconsciously implanted in the viewer's head," noted Oleksandr Denysenko, emphasizing that today a debilitation of cinema is taking place, which is a planned action to destroy national culture. The film "Trojan Savior" presented by him at the festival was created in surzhyk. As the director assured, this is not a copying of Verka Serduchka and not a form of ridiculing the Ukrainian, it is a form of his thinking: "I wanted to find out what kind of world a person has if he even thinks frighteningly."
Another reason, according to Yaroslav Lupiy, is that the state absolutely ignores the issue of Ukrainian cinematography. Confirmation – the words of the then Minister of Culture Oksana Bilozir that she does not need cinema. Moreover, during his presidency, Viktor Yushchenko never once met with artists. The law on cinema is currently in the Verkhovna Rada, however, it is not known when it will be adopted. Instead, its adoption would be a great step in the development of cinematography, since, according to Oleksandr Denysenko's conviction, "an economy without culture is not built."
Oleksandr Denysenko and Yaroslav Lupiy assured that, despite the obvious process of destruction, Ukrainian cinema does have a future, since there are now many talented young directors. For full-fledged work, they lack only funds. Instead, today the state finances such films that contain neither a national idea nor national morality, yet they are supposedly winners of supposedly held competitions. And 3 million hryvnias go toward this. "Cinematography must be separated into a separate structure, with its own ministry, so as not to get lost among pop shows," noted Yaroslav Lupiy. "Ukraine releases many films, but this is too little for all of this to be called cinematography. In addition, it is necessary to discourage certain Pinchuk channels from playing the role of film studios."
The situation with Slovak cinema is also disheartening. The biggest problem, according to Suzanna Slavikova, is the lack of proper funding, which determines the release of a small number of films. Slovak directors, like Ukrainian ones, survive thanks to "dubbing." The film "Rain Falls on Our Souls," which opened the festival in Lutsk, received the prize for best cinema at a children's film festival in 2004. That is, good cinema also exists in Slovakia, however, these are only isolated pictures, and there should be more of them.
As for Belarusian cinema, according to the guests from the neighboring country, it is developing. "In recent years, the state leadership has turned its attention to cinematography," noted Oleksandr Bezpaly. "Development is proceeding slowly, but we hope that little by little everything will be settled. For next year the president has planned 6 pictures. In addition, we are the only ones in the former union who have preserved the Theater of Film Actors." According to the director, the national idea should be the priority: "We survived thanks to the fact that we began working for the small viewer – children, whom we educate starting from kindergarten."