"Bringing back a piece of Ukrainian land is a real problem," - Ukrainian filmmaker about war, emigration and cinema

Short films exist mostly within the framework of festivals. This format is open to those who like to experiment and has its own narrow niche of viewers. Why can it be interesting and what topics are important today? To find out, we talked to Lada Kopytova, a director and screenwriter. Watch the full interview and read the shortened version on Intent about the transportation of Ukrainian land, the British and American markets, and the experience of emigration.

You came to Odesa while working on the short film The Land. Tell us about it.

It's a short movie, 10-12 minutes long. It is based on the experience of my grandmother, who was forced to move from Ukraine to London at the age of 72. It happened three years ago. The film is about an elderly Ukrainian refugee, Valentyna, who is stopped at customs control at the London airport because she is trying to smuggle a jar of Ukrainian soil.

It's more of a metaphorical story, the movie will be in the genre of magical realism. But the story itself is real. It is a collective image of my experience of moving and evacuating my grandmother. My grandmother is my best friend, we have always been very close. We love each other. And I watched her adapt to her new life in London. Nowadays, especially in our context, everything is strongly tied to the territory, to the physical land. It was born that way somehow. There was a moment when I founded a women's art collective in London and we were planning an installation, and I made a structure out of suitcases from which plants sprouted. My grandmother was in Ukraine at that time, in Kamianske, and I called her and asked her to bring me a jar of soil, because I wanted at least a part of this installation to be really from Ukraine. And my grandmother was ready to bring me this soil, but then my father started reading about it. It turned out that bringing organic matter to the UK is a very complicated process. Because it is a biomaterial, it can harm animals, plants, everything. That's why there is a very meticulous process, and if it's plants, you have to fill out the appropriate documents. But I really like this. It seems to me that the airport and customs control are always a sterile space: everything is gray, made by people.

Generally speaking, when I think about the experience of emigration, I have two images: emigration before the full-scale invasion is something pleasant, cool, you go to look for another life or another experience. Emigration after the outbreak of a major war is associated with pain and loss. You live in London, what was your experience like?

I have a lot of friends who had something similar. When we were growing up in Ukraine, I think I watched a lot of American TV shows. Even if I didn't live in the United States, I still had this American dream of living abroad, of how much better it was, of learning English, German, French, of going somewhere and building my life there. And I grew up with this and then moved to London. The mentality of the British is something super different from ours. And I didn't like it at first, it was hard to adjust to it. Well, we all have our places of power. For me, this city of power was Kyiv. It was only after I moved that I realized how much I missed it. It was a long, rather painful process. I always dreamed of coming back, I always thought that I would graduate from film school and then I always wanted to come back to Ukraine, to make films here. It seems to me that everything is just beginning here. In England, the film industry has been around for many years and it's very difficult to bring something new. And every story I make is Ukrainian, because I write my own scripts, which I then direct, and it's always about me. It's always therapy. And that's why I want to bring this therapy to my people, to talk about something that is relevant to all of us now. But with the war, my move was a little late.

Photo: Intent

The reputation of Ukrainian films has changed. We see Ukrainian directors and Ukrainian films on shortlists. Did this give you additional motivation?

There has been a shift towards the Western audience. Because before that, I think, these were mostly domestic stories in terms of mentality, humor, themes, and structure. More were produced for Ukrainians. And now, I think everyone has realized who this new audience is: Ukrainians, but also everyone else who is outside the borders of Ukraine. And that's why Ukrainian films are doing so well.

I had a slightly different story with the statement about the war, because I wasn't in Ukraine when the full-scale invasion began. For the first two years, I didn't feel like I had the right to talk about it. I had a kind of stupor when I thought about the war, nothing came to my mind, because it's just a state where you want to shout, do, donate, but you don't understand how to translate it into art and scripts. So for the first two years I just sat there, beating myself up, biting myself, thinking that Lada, you're an artist, you're a director - write, show. And then I somehow broke through, and every script was a reflection on this topic.

What was discussed among your circle in London about the war?

In London, I am in my own information and cultural bubble. And, of course, everyone around me is super sane, a lot of Ukrainians-a huge Ukrainian community in London, but also a lot of expats from other countries. Most people understand what war is. The British and people in the West are used to the fact that if they see something in the newspapers, on the Internet, on the BBC, it exists. But as soon as it disappears, it seems that the war is over and everything is fine. When I said that I was going to Ukraine to film or visit my grandmother, the first question was whether the war was over. Because the media first focused on Ukraine, then new news came out, and everything went through a cycle, filtered. I think it's very important to remind us through cinema, to show that this is all real, that there are a lot of Valentines like the one in my movie in London, and they are all among us. And you just need to stop looking at your phone, even when you're riding the subway, and just look up and realize that the person opposite you may also have their own pain, their own story, and we carry it inside us every day.

What are the topics in short films today, besides war?

Short films are such a wonderful kind of cinema, a form of cinema where anything is possible. That's why I really like it. Of course, I want to make feature films at some point in my life. But short films are something between an experiment, a fairy tale, a dream, and a music video, where anything is possible, and you don't have to resolve something too much and show a logical beginning, end, or middle. They can be so different both thematically and structurally, and I always enjoy this in short films. It's like an experiment. Again, I was talking about therapy, and it seems to me that a lot of the short films I've watched are self therapy for the director or screenwriter. Usually it is something very painful that cannot be expressed in words, only through some sounds, dialogues and mise-en-scene. And so it turns out that a person pours out his or her soul. In addition to Earth, I have two other short films I'm working on right now. One of them is a grotesque comedy, which is completely different from drama and magical realism. So this is an opportunity to grab hold of an idea and let it lead you by the hand.

Марія Литянська