Directed by Kateryna Khramtsova • 2023 • Ukraine
Kateryna Khramtsova’s documentary short Qirim – the native Tatar name for Crimea – is a portrait of Antonina Romanova: a non-binary performance artist turned mortar technician in the Ukrainian army. Incorporating animation and split-screen techniques, and merging personal testimony with battlefield footage, Khramtsova’s film offers a window into one of the many individual battles that constitutes Ukraine’s struggle for sovereignty.
QIRIM
Written, directed, and shot by Kateryna Khramtsova
Animations by Karyna Khramtsova-Khatkevych
In Ukrainian with English subtitles
Up Next in Shorts Showcase: miniature masterpieces from the Klassiki collection
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Aralkum
Directed by Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluktenko • 2022 • Uzbekistan
The fate of the Aral Sea, which spans the Uzbek-Kazakh border, is one of the twentieth century’s greatest environmental disasters. Ravaged by Soviet industrial policy, this once abundant inland ocean has long since become the...
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Comrade Policeman
Directed by Assel Aushakimova • 2021 • Kazakhstan
Assel Aushakimova (Welcome to the USA) shows why she is one of the most acute observers of contemporary Kazakh society with this droll satirical short. When a local reporter from state television is sent to capture a PR stunt from the Ka...
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Hakob Hovnatanyan
Directed by Sergei Parajanov • 1967 • Armenia/USSR
After completing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and before embarking on The Colour of Pomegranates, the great Sergei Parajanov produced this exquisite miniature about the work of Hakob Hovnatanyan, a nineteenth-century Armenian...
