The White Bird Marked with Black
Adventures in Eastern Europe: a cult cinema playlist from Dan Bird
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1h 36m
Directed by Yuri Ilyenko • 1971 • USSR/Ukraine
Yuri Ilyenko’s landmark film follows the Zvonars, a family of poor musicians, as personal and geopolitical crises collide across the course of the tumultuous 1940s. Set in the region of Bukovina, on the border between Ukraine and Romania, Ilyenko’s folkloric vision draws on local traditions, in keeping with the Ukrainian “poetic cinema” movement of the period. A visually striking and vividly rendered account of Ukrainian national consciousness at a turning point in modern history.
THE WHITE BIRD MARKED WITH BLACK • БІЛИЙ ПТАХ З ЧОРНОЮ ОЗНАКОЮ
Directed by Yuri Ilyenko
Written by Yuri Ilyenko and Ivan Mykolaychuk
Cinematography by Vilen Kalyuta
Music by Ivan Mykolaychuk
Starring: Larisa Kadochnikova, Ivan Mykolaychuk, Bohdan Stupka
In Ukrainian, Romanian and Russian with English subtitles
Winner of the Best Film Award at the Moscow International Film Festival, 1971
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