Another theft of Ukrainian cultural heritage – the festival, so to speak, of Russian cinema, which is held in France under the slogan “For a different Russia” shows Serhiy Parajanov’s film “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”. In the festival program, it is called Les Chevaux de feu (“Fire Horses”), and in brackets, it is written in Russian “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”.
The festival, founded in 2015, is organized by a French organization. One of its founders and president Zhan Radvani is a geographer specializing in the study of geopolitics and cinema in Russia, who worked in Moscow. And there is also a member of the festival board, Francoise Navay, who is a historian of Russian and Soviet cinema (the Dovzhenko film studio, where the film was shot, and the story of the Ukrainian writer Mykhailo Kotsyubynskyi as the primary source did not let the organizers, specializing in cinema, understand that this film not Russian at all-ed. note).
The festival is dedicated to the memory of Oleksiy Navalny, who died in the colony at the end of February, and offers, as the official website says, “to discover the best of Russian cinema, past and present.” “We believe that even in these turbulent times, despite the violence of the ruling regime, it is necessary to continue to protect and promote Russian culture, in particular in the cinema,” the website added (it is interesting why the program did not include “Brigade”, “Boomer” or “It’s bitter!” – editor’s note).
For some reason, the organizers decided to promote Russian culture in cinema with the help of the film “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” by Serhii Paradzhanov, who protested in the 60s of the last century against mass political arrests in Ukraine and the persecution of Ukrainian intellectuals, and 1973 was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. A year’s imprisonment, including for Ukrainian nationalism.
Representatives of the Embassy of Ukraine in France have already appealed to the country’s power institutions, in particular to the Ministry of Culture, and reported a blatant case of misappropriation of the Ukrainian cinematographic heritage by the organizers of the Festival. “Culture continues to be cynically used to legitimize Russian aggression. It is known that for years this “Russian film” festival relied on the support of the Russian authorities, the embassy said. – It is obvious that, despite the seemingly formal change of emphasis by the organizers, their methods in many respects remain unchanged.”
Diplomats emphasized that it was a case of cultural appropriation and asked the French authorities to deal with the situation and restore justice.
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