Eastern Front
Yevhen Titarenko woke on the morning of 24th February due to visible explosions as did many panicked Ukrainians. He immediately took his camera and returned to the front lines.
On Ukraine’s Independence Day, the renowned master, festival grand prix winner Vitaliy Manskiy ("Under the Sun", 2015) introduces Yevhen or “Rezhik”, who survived six horrible months in ambulances, tanks, and jeeps and bravely saved wounded compatriots from shrapnel, bullets, and bombs.
A group of volunteers from a medical battalion drive their families to a big house in West Ukraine. They will return to this idyllic place for calm dinners and long conversations. Yevhen fixes the camera to his helmet to provide a brutal and immersive experience from the trenches featuring furious rides, awful injuries, and permanent bombardment, but always with some jokes.
Edvinas Pukšta
Vitaliy Manskiy (1963) studied at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. As a director, he has made over 30 films, which have screened and won awards at festivals around the world. He is the founder and was for many years the director of Artdocfest, a festival for experimental Russian-language documentary films. In 2022, the festival ceased its activities due to Russian censorship and the war against Ukraine. Since 2014, he has lived in Riga, Latvia, where he founded the international documentary film festival Artdocfest Riga. Mansky's films are also regularly screened at PÖFF. His 2015 film "Under the Sun" won the Grand Prix at PÖFF.
Filmography:
valik/selected: Nasha rodina (Gagarin’s Pioneers, 2005, doc), Truba (Toru, 2013, doc), V lutšah solntsa (Päikese all, PÖFF 2015, doc), Close Relations (Suguvõsa, PÖFF 2016, doc), Svědkové Putinovi (Putini tunnistajad, PÖFF 2018, doc), Gorbachev. Heaven (Gorbatšov. Paradiis, PÖFF 2020, doc)
Yevhen Titarenko (1988)
Filmography:
War for Peace (2015, doc), The Evacuation (2021), Shidniy front (Eastern Front, 2023)
Award for Best Baltic Film, grant of 5000€ from Piletilevi
