Water Wears Away

synopsis

Doubts about her own past and the collapse of her former certainties lead Ukrainian director Kateryna Ruzhyna to revisit old amateur videos. As she looks back on her childhood in Zaporizhzhia, she discovers traces of Russian cultural influence and subjects her own memory to a process of decolonisation. This retrospective element is complemented by uncensored interviews from her time in exile in Prague. Together with friends from Ukraine and Russia, she asks whether it is possible to maintain friendships when one’s home countries are at war. This self-reflective essay on the search for a balance between the personal and the political makes room for vulnerability, anger and formal experimentation.

“Life is about understanding what we can change, what we cannot change, and knowing how to tell the difference.”

biography

Kateryna Ruzhyna (1995) is a Ukrainian director living in Prague, where she is studying documentary filmmaking at FAMU. She studied art history and theory at Charles University and the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. Her work explores themes of memory, identity and emigration. She won the Silver Eye Award for her film Avitaminosis (2022).

film details

director:	Kateryna Ruzhyna
producer:	Tomáš Riederer
editing:	Dmitar Janjušević
music:	Szymon Wildstein
sound:	Juras Karaka

contact

Tomáš Riederer / Hs Film
riederertomas@gmail.com