The Hard Earth and The 51st Star: Documentaries by Sally Lawton and Ian Curry
Doors 7:30 pm; $5 admission.
An experimental feature length documentary charting the relationship of five Ukrainians and one Ukrainian American to the 2014 revolution and preceding war.
The film is shot over the central and western regions of Ukraine, immediately post-revolution. Six figures explain their relationship to previous and furthering events in their homes and towns. First the Euromaidan protest are discussed as a singular, illuminating event. After abstracted information, dense stories of the annexation of Crimea, war in the East, and the disillusionment of the USSR, reveal complex portraits.
The director examines interpersonal relationships and how the making of the film impacts the realizations. The guides and narrations take on specific forms, showing the miniature in global news stories. The elusive categorization of Ukraine, free and yet oppressed is framed by the difficulty and ease of documentation.
TRT: 62 minutes | Original Format: HD | English and Ukrainian with English Subtitles | Sincerely Productions
About the Director:
Sally Lawton is making film and video work in Chicago and grew up in Detroit. She co-owns Sincerely Productions. She has done curatorial work with experimental film and documentary in Chicago, at The Nightingale, Run of Life, and others. Her academic background is in film and nonprofit studies, graduating from DePaul University in 2013. Sally began filming interviews primarily for a public archiving project on Ukraine in 2014, which lead to traveling to Ukraine in summer 2015 and collecting material for the film.
A voice shouts from a cave, sounds of the cosmos radiate over a tropical paradise, and a phantasm parades down the street with a sword as issues are heard and forms are seen that represent colonialism in Puerto Rico both past and present.
About the Director:
Films by Ian Curry often document subjects and perspectives outside the mainstream, consider how popular culture interfaces with personal identity, or explore how ongoing histories perpetuate social or political patterns. Many of his recent films use 16mm and are inspired by artists cinema, direct cinema, and expanded cinema. Like films from these genres, Ian’s films are produced with non sync cameras, double system sound, and sometimes embrace live manipulation of film projectors during a screening or presentation.