“AWAY” awarded at IDFA ‘22
The documentary Away, a film directed by Ruslan Fedotow in DocNomads, won the Best Short Documentary Award at the 35th IDFA - International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.
Jury statement: “A film made from urgency: an urgency to accompany, to make visible, to get closer, and to take care of each other. A brave film in which we feel the filmmaker's audacious gaze and tenderness through which he sits with his characters. A film about people who are displaced from their lands, where the pain is transformed into tenderness and art is transformed into resistance. We feel the effects of war out of the frame, through memories, gestures, and expressions; the power of listening and care.”
By Ruslan Fedotow (Belarus) • 28’ • 2022
Synopsis:
A heartbreaking portrait of 16-year-old Ukrainian refugees Andrey and Alisa, who help out at a school for refugee children in Budapest. Andrey asks the children to draw pictures of something from back home in Ukraine. What beautiful things can they recall? He offers the example of his own grandfather’s cherry orchard. The children use confrontational, adult vocabulary to describe their experiences of war. A young boy earnestly goes through a number of battle strategies, and a girl provides a vivid account of a rocket attack.
After school, the young couple make colorful protest artwork out on the streets of the Hungarian capital, sparking discussions between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian passersby. The camera films the pair without commentary, capturing the everyday fun had by two teenagers in love, as well as the difficult phone calls to the home front. Reassuring stories of ripening cherries are welcome, but the sadness of the war, the imminent trauma and the growing awareness of their wrecked youth is unfortunately ever-present.
In IDFA catalogue