“…To The Victory” is a unanimous choice for this year’s “Platform award” amongst a very strong selection. Bringing cinematic language to its roots and at the same time masterfully playing with audience expectation, this film dismantles convention to reveal deeply resonant universal emotion. Director Valentyn Vasyanovych has choreographed a mise-en-scène, rendered with masterful precision, arriving at the kind of refined simplicity that can only be achieved with artistic maturity and bold vision. He has deftly used comedy to address a very complicated and complex situation into a work that is both audacious and profoundly beautiful. Ultimately, the film returns us to the very essence of cinema, reminding us why we are compelled to tell stories on film and why we continue to do so…”
This is the full citation read on stage when this film unanimously won the coveted Platform Award during TIFF50’s closing ceremony. Chosen from among the top ten films shortlisted for this juried award, “To the Victory” had its world premiere during the 50th edition of Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Two weeks before the awards ceremony, I intuitively requested a one-on-one interview with the film’s multi-awarded Ukrainian director, writer, actor, and editor, Valentyn Vasyanovych. Unable to travel to Toronto, Vasyanovych agreed to a zoom interview. I was able to watch the film before the scheduled meeting transpired.
The film displays a distinct approach to cinematic sobriety and spontaneity that brings to the fore the boldness of Vasyanovych’s artistry. Set against the uncanny aftermath in a country still grappling with an ongoing war, the film evokes the searing truth about the post- war ramifications to its people. The collective yearning of the characters in getting everything and everyone back to pre-war Ukraine resonates throughout the movie. One may claim victory and visualize a hopeful future, but where does the prospect fit in between these broken lives?
My half-hour interview with director Valentyn Vasyanovych and producer Volodymyr Yatsenko summarizes it all. Here are some truncated transcriptions of our conversation:
Joyne: You talked about presenting to the world a scenario about post-war Ukraine…Do you think that the film…, “To the Victory,” was able to capture the message that you wanted…to give to the world through filmmaking?
Valentyn through Volodymyr’s translation: … It’s almost impossible to understand what it’s gonna be, what it’s gonna lead to, in a country at war; because if you don’t have emotional experience, it’s very hard to understand…We in Ukraine, before the war, we hardly understand what other people had in other countries…Our main message is, you don’t need to have this experience. You should avoid it…it just destroys all of your life. Even if it’s like victory… it’s destroyed your life. People gone. Your friends. It’s your family destroyed. It’s the future. The future of your kids… so that’s probably the main point from it.
The other thing is, we are definitely not a first country at war, we are definitely not the last country at war…Our main message is also to warn you … and if you want to ask my personal perception, I think we just stepped into the third world war…People forget how it was at war… we should keep peace if possible…
Joyne: …Do you think that film is a powerful tool to use in order to relay important messages, whether it’s political, cultural, social, anything that would tell the audience what you feel as a filmmaker…?
Valentyn through Volodymyr’s translation: …For me, I think it’s a tool because the film itself could give you this emotional core feeling… Because if you’re not in the war, the only possible way to explain how it could be is just a bit, it’s just emotional things…film is emotional. So through films, at least share a bit percentage of what we really feel…that’s why film matters…
Joyne: …This film being semi-autobiographical…you might have taken some of your personal reflections or personal experience… Which one is personal and which one is fictional?
Valentyn through Volodymyr’s translation: It’s more of collective… it’s not about himself. It’s more about his friends…basically what pushed him… is about the war, what happens in real life, friends of us…In any of the scene is Valentyn and friends and relatives…But if you ask about scenes Valentyn is much closer to his real character, it’s probably the scene when he is discussing with his son the real life and life in the face of computers…And the scene with the father because Valentyn’s father has also passed away during the filming of this film.
Joyne: Sorry to hear about your loss.
Valentyn through Volodymyr’s translation: So the scenes of the cemetery is also something which is exactly in Valentyn’s life.
Joyne: Can you share with us your experience…in finishing this film, …and how did it affect you, considering that you’re doing this as a post-war Ukraine versus the pre-war Ukraine… the impact of how your memory, in terms of before the war started and after the war; the juxtaposition…did you experience any difficulty … in terms of really putting your vision about post-war Ukraine?
Valentyn through Volodymyr’s translation: Great question. It is interesting how his perception changed during the filming. Because even to start to shoot this film,”To the Victory”, it really was a toast in the beginning without any irony in it. Because everybody believes we overcome somehow quite fast. Nobody can believe that 21st century in the middle of Europe, we can have the war for almost four years. It’s incredible. Now, it’s much more ironic. Even if it’s gonna be, a very high price paid for it…it sounds very sarcastic now. So things change. And we can talk about difficulty during the shooting…I was in the army…other people were somewhere. It was quite complicated. But the biggest issue is money of course… Because before, we have a system where you have the government support system of this kind of arthouse films. And also European Co-production system built on co-production which means you need to bring something to the table to get something out of the table. If you don’t have any money to bring in, the whole system is not working. Nobody can support you. So that was our biggest challenge… And of course, if it’s not the support of the European Solidarity Fund… we could not have shot this film. And also Lithuanian friends stepped in…it was our own money to invest… We have six to eight people to depend… small team. The other side of it is, if you have a team of friends, that means you have amazing creative freedom and support to each other. It’s priceless. That’s the amazing thing that happened to us during the shooting.
…He wanted to tell a story about himself and play himself. When you’re doing films, you’re living some kind of …imaginary world…you’re doing something that doesn’t exist, and you participate in it, and you play the person. It’s quite interesting that I don’t even try to divide precisely where it is reality and where it is not reality. So I just try to share my feelings, and my emotions, and my dreams, and my fears, with the audience, and that is the way I do it… ####