On November 4, “Meno Avilys” invites you to join a film screening „B&W Retrospective: 98–05“ exploring the student film archive of I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television, and to discover a selection of rarely seen Ukrainian student films from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s.
I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television has trained Ukrainian filmmakers since the 1960s. Its archive holds around 700 student films on 35mm film stock, most of them seldom screened outside the university. Since 2025, Volodymyr Prylutskyi and Alik Darman have been digitising this collection and presenting it to audiences through their research project, Film Processing Factory (Цех Обробки Плівки).
The event is free of charge. Registration is required.
4 November, 7:30 | Screening: B&W Retrospective: 98–05
Meno Avilys Cinematheque (A. Goštauto str. 2, Vilnius)
Presented by: Volodymyr Prylutskyi
Language: Ukrainian with English subtitles
Total runtime: 71 min
An archival programme by film scholars Volodymyr Prylutskyi and Alik Darman, bringing together black-and-white films shot on celluloid by students of the university between 1998 and 2005. Their authors were the first generation to study at the film school after the fall of the Soviet Union. They had far greater access to world cinema and far more freedom of expression than those before them. At the same time, it was one of the hardest periods in the history of Ukrainian cinema: state funding had almost disappeared, very few feature films were being made, and documentary filmmaking had nearly come to a halt. The films vary widely in form and subject, but they all share a sincerity and a spirit of exploration.
Some went on to receive international recognition: “Wayfarers” by Ihor Strembitskyi won the Short Film Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2005, the first ever Palme d’Or awarded to a Ukrainian film, and Taras Tomenko’s graduation film “The Shooting Gallery” received awards at the Berlinale and the Venice Film Festival. Other films captured everyday life of the time, though some of their authors, such as Vitia Hurov, later faded from public view.
Films:
1. “The Taoist Looks Back” (1998, dir. Maksym Surkov)
2. “The Liftman” (1998, dir. Heorhiy Fomin)
3. “Shooting Gallery” (2000, dir. Taras Tomenko)
4. “Paper Troubles” (2001, dir. Bohdana Smyrnova)
5. “Vitya Hurov Goes to Italy” (2002, dir. Vitya Hurov)
6. “Dreams in the City” (2004, dir. Maksym Mekheda)
7. “Wayfarers” (2005, dir. Ihor Strembitsky)
The screening will be followed by a discussion with the audience.
Language: English
PARTICIPANTS’ BIOS
Volodymyr Prylutskyi is a Kyiv-based film scholar, curator, and archivist. In 2025 he co-founded Film Processing Factory, a research project dedicated to the archive of 35mm student films from I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television: around 700 films made from the 1960s to the 2010s. The archive was the subject of his MA thesis at the university, where he now continues his research as a PhD candidate. The project is digitising the collection and presenting it through curated screenings in Ukraine and abroad.
Varvara Spilt is an artist, film researcher and curator from Kyiv, based in Vilnius. She works across video, text, sound, and researches archives of various kinds, with a focus on peripheral moving image practices. In 2022 she started curating nomadic film screenings, and in 2025 she became a co-host of Archeologija, a monthly radio show on Radio Vilnius. Her recent work has been shown at Atletika art gallery and the CAC Reading Room (Lithuania). She has contributed sound pieces to Radio Commons (Finland) and Sedimente (Austria) and taken part in the fourth edition of the Film Diary festival in New York.
This event is part of the Cinematheque Event Series at “Meno Avilys”, curated by Ona Kotryna Dikavičiūtė.
The Cinematheque Event Series is an ongoing project of “Meno Avilys” in which Lithuanian and international artists, curators, and researchers are invited to explore the Cinematheque’s physical and virtual archive of restored films and video art. The curatorial research is presented to the audiences of “Meno Avilys” via guest-curated programmes of moving pictures, public talks, commissioned texts, and literature recommendations.
Organized by: “Meno Avilys”
Supported by: Lithuanian Council for Culture, Lithuanian Film Centre, Vilnius City Municipality
Designed by: Mindaugas Gavrilovas (Studio Cryo)