“I'm always looking for reasons to be optimistic": An Interview with Iryna Tsilyk
Ukrainian director and writer Iryna Tsilyk made her debut on the world stage when she won the Directing Award in the World Cinema Documentary category for ‘The Earth is Blue as an Orange’ at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. For the first time in history, a Ukrainian director's film not only took part in the official competition but also received an award.
The author arrived in Chernivtsi with her husband, fellow author Artem Chekh, during the Meridian Czernowitz International Poetry Festival at the beginning of September. They were here to present fragments of her new film ‘Rock, Paper, Grenade’, based off of Chekh's new novel ‘Who Are You?’.
Liliia Shutiak spoke with Iryna Tsilyk about American audiences' reaction to her work, the director's responsibility to establish a dialogue with the audience, victims of war and trauma of the 90s, family stories and the search for new forms of expression, the struggle for natural-sounding Ukrainian in film, and how to cope when mines are falling in a nearby yard.
Your film The Earth is Blue as an Orange won the Directing Award in the World Cinema Documentary category at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. It has gone on to win more than 20 awards at various European film festivals. Why do you think foreign audiences have responded so positively to your work?
I am in love with American culture and the fact that my success happened there is important to me. It was my first trip to the United States and I had dreamed about it for a long time. When the trip culminated in winning the award at the Sundance Film Festival, I was overcome with happiness. I understand perfectly well that winning is a relative thing. It's always a gamble, depending on the jury's subjective tastes. But the rules of the game work in such a way that these awards then open the door to other worlds, and it helps the film’s trajectory a lot. The world premiere of the film at Sundance was a breakthrough moment for us. It was the first time a film by a Ukrainian director had taken part in the competition, not to mention receive an award.
I have yet to see any audience like the American audience. Every screening was sold out. Even at 8 o'clock in the morning there were no empty seats left in the hall! People laughed, cried, asked endless questions that testified to their level of understanding of the film. When viewers "read" quotes and know the important context, you realize that they are involved in the film and support you. This is a start that filmmakers can only dream of. We were carried away by this wave—more than 100 festivals, the honors and awards… All of this is very good for Ukrainian cinema. Not so long ago, we started talking about ourselves on an equal footing with the rest of the world, rather than always feeling second class.
The title The Earth is Blue as an Orange is an oxymoron, a combination of the incompatible. This is the film itself, in which the war is shown in an atypical way: a family living in Krasnohorivka, on the "red line" of the war. They experience this conflict in their own way, and it is not only negative. The heroes laugh and cry, they do not play, but are alive. Tell me, how did the idea of showing the war from this perspective, that is, through the history of one family come about?
In a documentary film, a lot depends on the setting, the subjects, as well as the director's intuition and ability to make quick decisions. This is part of my profession. Not only do you have to seize the moment and hunt for the spectacular, but also to constantly choose—go right or left. I did not fully understand this at first while shooting the film. I was approached by a producer with the idea to pitch a project about children in Donbas. It immediately took off, but we changed our approach—we didn't portray a group of different teenagers, but rather focused instead on one family. It was a feeling of great luck when we got to this house, met the mother, saw her children, their cats, and the overall atmosphere. Then it became obvious that here, even without leaving home, you can make an intimate deep portrait and much more.
I’m always looking for reasons to be optimistic. Everyone in Ukraine is devastated and exhausted by what has been happening to us for the past eight years, and if you do not find any reasons for joy in your daily trials, it is very easy to burn out prematurely. The world has gone to the dogs and we all need to be understood -- despite the war and lockdown, there are still things to be thankful for. For this family it is no different. They know how to enjoy life, despite the fact that mines are falling in the next yard.
Many times during the preparation of the film, I heard from potential foreign viewers that they are tired of the same type of films about the war in Ukraine. In addition, they have enough of their own problems. And then it turned out that we are showing the war from a different angle. I was captivated by the fact that these supposedly small people do not look like victims of war. They take responsibility for their own lives as best they can. To do this, make a short film about themselves. We noticed them, showed this story to the world, and the world took notice. We are more than just victims of this war, and can find different ways to cope with it.
Viewers around the world has been very receptive to your film. Do you think Ukrainians are ready to accept it, this "gloomy poetry of Donbas", as you called it in one of your interviews?
One of our main tasks is to speak not only to the world, but also to ourselves. Movies, like books, are a way to provoke dialogues. This is what we can do in our place. It is important for people to think about how we live and those around us. Thanks to this film, I heard from some people how their preconceptions about Donbas changed.
There were many positive screenings of the film in Ukraine. However the film's release did not go exactly as planned, because it coincided with the worst times of lockdown. Otherwise, we obviously would have had more viewers.
How do you respond to criticism of your work?
For years I have been learning how to adequately deal with it. When I was very young, it affected me a lot. But life has taught me how to control my emotions. There are the opinions of those whose tastes I trust, and there are an infinite number of responses to which it is not necessary to react so emotionally. Creative people often live in their own small worlds and do not receive real feedback from their target audience. However any creative person needs that feedback from their potential readers or viewers. It is necessary to understand how much it resonated with those for whom it was written or filmed. This does not mean that you have to betray yourself and follow the crowd. I now react very selectively and try to stick to the high shelf of reviews.
I know that The Earth is Blue As An Orange was submitted to the Oscars. How did that turn out?
Unfortunately nothing came of it. This is a multi-layered game, the rules of which must be known. It was interesting to understand how everything works. Being among the nominees is a lot of work and money. Without the latter, it does not work. When I had a glimpse at the behind the scenes of the competition, I realized that non-budget projects stand almost no chance. We did not have state support for this. Last year, the film "Atlantis" (directed by Valentyn Vasyanovych) was submitted by Ukraine, and we applied independently for the documentary film category. It was too early to hope for anything more, but I'm hopeful that someday it will happen for Ukrainian cinema.
You are currently working on the feature film Rock, Paper, Grenade based on the autobiographical novel Who Are You? by your husband Artem Chekh. How loyal will the film adaptation be to the original material?
It is difficult to give you a specific number. During all my years of marriage, I realized that our family histories are so intertwined that I sometimes forget what happened in the Chekh family and what happened in mine. Moreover, it is even funny when one of our relatives says something, and we sometimes quickly decide who is taking this material.
Rock, Paper, Grenade is a unique opportunity to combine those experiences. Not only do we share the difficult times but also good memories of childhood and adolescence. This film is an opportunity to look back and come to terms with my own images and rejection of certain actions of my own parents and Chekh's. The important thing is to understand that they felt the weight of the world on their shoulders. They were young, as we are now, trying to manage as best they could. Thanks to them, we have received the charge of faith that comes when you are loved and accepted as you are.
The hard times of the 90s following the Soviet collapse is a theme rarely explored by contemporary Ukrainian writers. Why do you think that is? After all, many of you were children back then, and these stories need to be told…
I haven't given much thought as to why that is. Interestingly enough, when Chekh's novel District D was published, some critics said that there was enough content about the 1990s. It surprised me, because I also noticed that many authors from my generation have devoted little time to this theme. Chekh's novel, which I referenced, is not strictly about the 90s. It merely serves at the setting of a story about growing up. At the same time, it should be said that this period of Ukrainian history is very important. I remember that my surroundings had a lot in common with the novel—this total poverty that de-energized both my parents and me when it seemed that the doors of the world at large were tightly closed to people like us. Such markers are incomprehensible to children today, and we were traumatized by it. Despite everything, I remember my childhood and youth with warmth, because there was so much beauty. I wanted to keep it in the film as well. On the one hand, there was a risk of romanticizing those times, on the other—I did not want to present the hard 90's as a grey and dark period, as it's shown in Russian cinema. That's why the colors of the film were important to me—yellow, blue, red, green—the colors of my first photos taken on Kodak and Fujifilm. These are my memories of those times, and they are colorful.
How would you describe the state of modern Ukrainian cinema? What do you think Ukrainian cinema needs to do in order to win international awards and be actively represented abroad?
In recent years, there has been a significant breakthrough in Ukrainian cinema and Ukrainian filmmakers have won awards. Today, there is almost no top level A film festival that does not present our films at the proper level. There are many reasons for me to be proud of my colleagues. But I want to keep improving at a steady pace. Our directors lack practice. We get a chance to make a film about once every two to three years at best. I want to shoot more, film by film. Apart from the support of the state, there is nowhere else to get money. Private investment does not work. Any smart businessman wants to invest money and earn a normal salary. So far, this system has not yet been established, just as there is no dialogue between the Ukrainian audience and cinema. We do not have enough cinemas to break even on film budgets or make a profit. We know how distributors "drive" Ukrainian films to remote cinemas, but they are screened at inconvenient times. There are categories of auteur cinema that should fight for the name of Ukraine on the world stage, and there should be a mass spectator cinema that makes money. Yet we still need convincing.
In addition to cinema, you are also the author of prose, poetry and children's books. Your last books were published in 2016. Are you planning to return to literature?
I did not stop being a writer—I'm just exploring different forms of artistic expression. In the last few years I have been learning to write screenplays, and this is the intersection of literature and cinema. I want to develop and reach new levels. In addition to screenplays, I feel that I want to write prose again. Poems are an uncontrollable thing: they come and go when they want. Now, for some reason, poetry isn't coming to me. There's a pause.
My experience as a writer helps me as a director. It gives me a small advantage that some directors don't always have—I feel the language and how to work with it. I have a trained ear and I can edit dialogues in the "here and now" mode. I would also advise directors to involve writers. For example, I invited Artem Chekh to work with us as our script supervisor, the person who has to make sure that everything happens according to the script and records any changes.
A palpable issue in Ukrainian cinema is that there are unconvincing dialogues in many films. As a viewer, I often suffer when characters don’t speak as people do in real life. One of my main missions as a filmmaker is to fight for natural-sounding Ukrainian language. That’s what I’m learning how to do.
Interviewed by Liliia Shutiak
Translated from the Ukrainian by Kate Tsurkan
Image credit: Julia Weber, taken from the author’s public Facebook