The war in Ukraine takes centre stage at Swiss documentary film festival
Switzerland’s most prestigious documentary film festival, Visions du Réel, which opened on Thursday, puts a special focus on the war in Ukraine. It features several Ukrainian productions and is setting up live online talks with Ukrainian filmmakers on the ground.
This content was published on April 8, 2022 - 11:01
The ongoing war in Ukraine is having repercussions in the Swiss film world, with various events putting the spotlight on the humanitarian tragedy. Last month, the Fribourg International Film Festival paid tribute to the country multiple times during its closing ceremony and the Ukrainian film Klondike, set during the Donbass war in 2014, won several awards.
The Fribourg festival also organised a charity screening of Elie Grappe’s film OlgaExternal link, which had previously won the Swiss Film Prize in the main category, prompting another wave of emotion among the public as the war was brought up in acceptance speeches.
Given its commitment to films depicting everyday reality, Visions du RéelExternal link, held in the western Swiss town of Nyon for the first time since the start of the pandemic, is also dealing with the war directly. The selection of the 53rd edition (April 7-17) includes four films with clear ties to Ukraine.
At the last minute, the festival announced the inclusion of Mariupolis, a documentary shot in 2016 in a city that was already in the fringes of the Donbass conflict, before being razed to the ground by Russian forces in the past weeks. The Lithuanian director of the film, Mantas Kvedaravičius, was reportedly killed in the besieged port city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine on April 2.
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