Move East Movie: Zaboronenyy (Forbidden)
6 September 2020 | 20.00-21.40 | Workshops of Culture, Grodzka 7 – patio
dir. Roman Brovko
Ukr | 2019
100 min.
A metaphorical tale about the life and mysterious death of Vasyl Stus, considered the most outstanding Ukrainian poet of the second half of the 20th century, a human rights defender, the hero of Ukraine. It’s 1985, USSR is announcing the beginning of perestroika. Mikhail Gorbachev speaks about transparency and democracy. At the same time, thousands of people remain imprisoned in Soviet prisons. One of them is Vasyl Stus – a Ukrainian poet, arrested in 1972 and charged with spreading antiSoviet propaganda and agitation. He died on the night of 3 to 4 September 1985 in the camp at Perm under mysterious circumstances. He was buried in an unnamed grave in the camp’s cemetery. In late autumn of 1989, after many previous attempts, his body was finally brought to Kiev, and the second burial transformed into a huge manifestation of Ukrainians rights to freedom. In 1985 Heinrich Böll submitted Vasyl Stus’ name as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The film is set at the time when KGB make their last attempt to tempt the poet with “freedom”.