CSEEES Film Screening: Atlantis (2019)
Director: Valentyn Vasyanovych Run Time: 106 min. Rating: NR
Starring: Andriy Rymaruk, Liudmyla Bileka, Vasyl Antoniak
Country: Ukraine
Language: Ukrainian with English subtitles, English
Join the Gateway Film Center and The Ohio State University Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (CSEEES) for a special screening followed by a discussion of the film led by Mykyta Tyshchenko (MA student in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures). Register for free here.
Director Valentyn Vasyanovych’s Atlantis (2019) originally premiered at the Film Center in January 2021.
About the film:
In his visionary and now-prescient 2020 feature, Ukrainian filmmaker Valentyn Vasyanovych envisioned a Russian invasion of his country, and its aftermath. Ukraine’s official submission to the 2021 Academy Awards, Atlantis screened at film festivals around the world including Toronto, Rotterdam and Venice, where it won Best Film in the Horizons Competition.
“Sensitively observed and meticulously crafted”
—Nikki Baughan for Screen Daily
It’s 2025, and Eastern Ukraine is a desert unsuitable for human habitation while water is an expensive commodity brought by trucks. As a wall is being built on the border, Sergiy, a former soldier, is having trouble adapting to this new reality. He meets Katya while on the Black Tulip mission dedicated to exhuming war corpses. Together, they try to return to some sort of normal life in which they are also allowed to fall in love again.
About the filmmaker:
Valentyn Vasyanovych studied at the Karpenko-Kary National University of Theatre, Film and TV in Kiev, Ukraine, and in 2007, he graduated from the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing in Poland. He released his first feature film Business As Usual in 2012, and his 2017 feature Black Level won the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Ukrainian Feature at the Odessa International Film Festival. Atlantis (2019) won Best Film in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival and was Ukraine’s official submission to the 2021 Academy Awards. His latest film on war in his home country, Reflection (2021), competed for top prize at the 2021 Venice Film Festival.
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