Ukraine is not just a hotspot on the map. We help the world to discover its history and culture.
One of the main goals of FILM.UA Group projects is to represent rich and original Ukrainian culture. In the last 5 years, the company has filmed a documentary series about the national Ukrainian clothing (Back to Basics and Back to Basics. Wedding), Ukrainian cuisine (Borsch. The Secret Ingredient). It has also created feature films, based on classic Ukrainian literature: a historical action film The Rising Hawk, and an animated film Mavka. The Forest Song (to be finished this year), and on modern one, as a historical drama film Maid-in-Law. Today, FILM.UA Group continues creating a new project with the motto “Discover Ukraine!”
The russian invasion of Ukraine and the full-scale war have turned many cinematographers into documentalists. FILM.UA Group, too, begins working on the new documentary projects. One of them is a cycle Risen from Ashes that compares the sequences of the Second World War on the planet and of the russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
From the beginning of the war, many of the historical and cultural spots in Ukraine were partially or completely destroyed, some of them are in the occupied territories under the temporary control of the Russian army. We cannot calculate this damage to the Eastern and Southern parts of Ukraine while the war still goes on. But we can capture it, demonstrate it– and fix it.
Risen from Ashes project will be created with CGI and VFX technologies to generate all the needed images for the reconstruction of history.
“Using the photogrammetry technologies, we will scan destroyed buildings and even blocks in 3D with a drone, and then create a very detailed 3D model of the scene. These models can help us in various ways, from classic infographics to a virtual production – a special studio with circular screens. In such a studio, the presenter will be as if fully present in the middle of a ruined city. In addition, we are experimenting with NERF, neural radiance field technology, that can generate complex 3D models, based on 2D images, even on photos from the mobile camera,” – tells Evgeniy Sannikov, Head of the Researches and Innovations Department of FILM.UA Group.
The participants of the project Risen from Ashes are historians, architects, and engineers who are already working on rebuilding the destroyed places. They will lead the viewer through the history, explaining how ruins after WWII became modern cities, and how Ukraine can use this expertise. The creators of the project are sure that the practical experience and recommendations of the specialists will help Ukrainians to recover the ruined cities faster. Risen from Ashes will tell stories of the rebuilding of Warsaw, London, Berlin, and Le Havre, while showing the Ukrainian cities, cynically and cruelly ruined by Russian attack now – Mariupol, Chernihiv, Bucha, Hostomel, Kharkiv (once destroyed by Germans in WWII).
The first footage of the project was included in the video Discover Ukraine 2022. It is a renewed version of an advertising video that shows the advantages of filming in Ukraine, created by Ukrainian cinematographers with the support of Ukrainian Motion Picture Association. It was presented at the Marché du Film market during the 75th Festival de Cannes and consisted of footage from the Kyiv region, in the city of Irpin, where russians destroyed many historical places, which once were popular filming locations.
Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/7Q904o_NKsY
FILM.UA Group is planning to produce at least 7 more projects dedicated to different aspects of the Ukrainian culture: forgotten names of prominent Ukrainians; Ukrainian artists who are appropriated by russian propaganda as russians; stolen artifacts of Ukrainian culture; Ukrainian lifestyle; and The Antonov An-225 Mriya, the biggest aircraft ever built, destroyed in 2022.
