Faces of Taboo
The film Taboo Images is a social research project shot in prisons in order to engage with the topics of prohibitions in society and different responses to information. People holding taboos about the direct discussion of some topics tend to address such topics in coded ways (e.g. modifications of one's own speech, body or other) because the person’s internal state is reflected in its facial expression and body language. Moreover, criminally convicted persons are often rejected by society for the rest of their life. What are the faces of people who have taken a path outside the law? What are their reactions to what is widely-accepted and approved by the rest of society?
The main goal of the project is to show the reaction of prisoners serving their sentences while watching and discussing the biographical film “5 Therapy” (2017, directed by Alisa Pavlovskaya), about the life of a drug-addicted, HIV-positive person who has spent 11 years in prison. The film is taken as a basis for communication between people from the outside world and people serving prison sentences. A wide spectrum of forms of human denial is revealed in the course of the film's narrative.
There will be a special map of Ukraine with three extraordinary regions of the country: Southern seaside steppe in summer, forests of the Central part of Ukraine in autumn and Western mountains in early spring.
To improve the project's goal, the convicted person and the free civilian could share the same basic caracteristics. The project would be more complex and complete if it were to include several national cultures and several countries for the shooting, such as Ukraine - a country with aspiration to the European Union, a member state of the European Union, and a state located at the top of quality-of-life index.
The main goal of the project is to show the reaction of prisoners serving their sentences while watching and discussing the biographical film “5 Therapy” (2017, directed by Alisa Pavlovskaya), about the life of a drug-addicted, HIV-positive person who has spent 11 years in prison. The film is taken as a basis for communication between people from the outside world and people serving prison sentences. A wide spectrum of forms of human denial is revealed in the course of the film's narrative.
There will be a special map of Ukraine with three extraordinary regions of the country: Southern seaside steppe in summer, forests of the Central part of Ukraine in autumn and Western mountains in early spring.
To improve the project's goal, the convicted person and the free civilian could share the same basic caracteristics. The project would be more complex and complete if it were to include several national cultures and several countries for the shooting, such as Ukraine - a country with aspiration to the European Union, a member state of the European Union, and a state located at the top of quality-of-life index.
This House is Undamaged
"This House is Undamaged" is a documentary that explores the complex transformation of Mariupol, a city in Ukraine that was extensively destroyed during the Russian invasion in 2022. The film explores reconstruction efforts under Russian control and highlights the strategic obliteration of war marks through rapid rebuilding.
One of the film's main narrative motifs is the deconstruction of media narratives about the reconstruction of Mariupol. Through a thorough examination of various media sources - from social media posts, amateur footage and propaganda videos to official reports and advertisements - the film seeks to reveal how the image of the city's "reconstruction" is carefully constructed and manipulated. By exposing the flaws and distortions in these depictions, the documentary critically analyses how the media plays a key role in shaping public perceptions of urban transformation, both locally and internationally.
The film unfolds not around a single character, but around the city itself. Mariupol is both the protagonist and the stage, a body whose scars, ruptures, and forced transformations are traced through found footage, propaganda clips, amateur videos, and fragments of memory. Its streets and buildings, its ruins and reconstructions, speak louder than any individual voice. But the city is not only seen — it is heard. Its soundscape becomes the deeper narrative, the pulse beneath the image.
The city is read as topography — a map in flux, marked by shifting borders of control, layers of rubble and scaffolding, zones of habitation and zones of abandonment. Satellite images dissolve into shaky phone recordings; promotional clips overlap with whispered testimonies. The city becomes a palimpsest, where destruction and construction exist side by side, each erasing and overwriting the other, yet never fully succeeding.
One of the film's main narrative motifs is the deconstruction of media narratives about the reconstruction of Mariupol. Through a thorough examination of various media sources - from social media posts, amateur footage and propaganda videos to official reports and advertisements - the film seeks to reveal how the image of the city's "reconstruction" is carefully constructed and manipulated. By exposing the flaws and distortions in these depictions, the documentary critically analyses how the media plays a key role in shaping public perceptions of urban transformation, both locally and internationally.
The film unfolds not around a single character, but around the city itself. Mariupol is both the protagonist and the stage, a body whose scars, ruptures, and forced transformations are traced through found footage, propaganda clips, amateur videos, and fragments of memory. Its streets and buildings, its ruins and reconstructions, speak louder than any individual voice. But the city is not only seen — it is heard. Its soundscape becomes the deeper narrative, the pulse beneath the image.
The city is read as topography — a map in flux, marked by shifting borders of control, layers of rubble and scaffolding, zones of habitation and zones of abandonment. Satellite images dissolve into shaky phone recordings; promotional clips overlap with whispered testimonies. The city becomes a palimpsest, where destruction and construction exist side by side, each erasing and overwriting the other, yet never fully succeeding.