Film screening Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Ivan

As part of the program running in parallel to the exhibition “The River Screamed Like a Wounded Beast”, a film screening and a discussion dedicated to Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Ivan (1932; featured in the exhibition) will take place. In addition to the innovative use of image, Ivan, Dovzhenko’s first sound film, provided the filmmaker with the opportunity of experimenting with sound. Folk singing is spliced together with factory whistles and the screeching and rumbling of machinery; lyrical shots of the flowing stream of Dnipro alternate with shots of gigantic metal structures. On the screen, we see the fight waged against nature by the workers implementing the first five-year plan which results in the construction of Dniprohes. Against the background of these grandiose events, a struggle with human nature also takes place as authorities attempt – though not always successfully – to transform local farmers into exemplary shock workers. Interestingly, the most well-rounded character of the film is not that of a heroic shock worker; rather, it is a truant who refuses to be “re-educated”. Dovzhenko, a master of the comedy genre, obviously had a field day portraying this figure. Source: https://dovzhenkocentre.org/event/kino42-pokaz-filmu-ivan-oleksandra-dovzhenka