Taras Tomenko

Ukraine 2004, 25 min

Awards

SPECIAL PRIZE OF FERA (Federation of European Film Directors), 2005 

SAPPORO International Film Festival (Japan), 2006

Awarded best silent film

International Film Festival in Thessalonica (Greece), 2006

Awarded best short-length film

Open Night Film Festival (Ukraine), 2004

Awarded best film

Awarded best camerawork

PROLOG Film Festival (Ukraine), 2004

Awarded best camerawork

Awarded best artistic approach

5th STOZHARY International Festival of Cinemactors (Ukraine), 2005

For the best actor in the short-length film, Mr S. Syplyvy

Sosnytsya Festival (Ukraine), 2005

Film On the Waves of Enchanted DESNA

Awarded best film

Other presentations

Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, 2004
Kerry Film Festival, 2005
Sopot Film Festival, 2005
Belgrade Documentary and Short Film Festival, 2005
Leuven International Short Film Festival, 2005
Ljubljana International Film Festival, 2005
Odense Film Festival, 2005

The parched land is broken up by iron structures. A simple-minded water deliverer unexpectedly runs into a terribly sorrowful angel with drooping wings. Vodovoz understands that there is a lot of money to  be made and puts the God’s messenger, now an apathetic wreck, into a cage to show it to  his fellow countrymen. Crowds of people in carnival costumes  rush to see the fairground curiosity but the angel’s presence does not seem to mean anything to them. There is no communication with the angel. Out of boredom they abandon themselves to  festive merrymaking, which soon develops into a genuine orgy....

Once more, Tomenko uses a sacred symbol to draw the limits of the rules one cannot trespass. Halfway between a theatre performance and a narrative parable, this short film shows how a man can meet his guarding angel and easily kill him by throwing it to a gluttonous crowd, incapable of compassion and  indifferent to mystery. The strange mystique and ambiguity of the story is enhanced  by  unique poetic imagery.

Director: Taras Tomenko

Screenplay: Taras Tomenko

Director of Photography: Myhailo Markov

Music: Kipras Mashanauskas

Designer: Vitaliy Shavel

Editor: Nataliya Lebeda

Producer: Taras Tomenko

CAST   Myhailo Golubovych, Sergiy Syplyvyy

Ukraine 2000, 10 min

Presentations

Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2000

Berlinale 2001

Febio Film Festival 2003

Awards

Panorama Award of the New York Film Academy, Berlinale 2001 

A homeless boy tries his luck at a shooting gallery, where one million is at stake. The clever boy promises to get the million first before giving the money back to the owner of the gallery. But the old man refuses in a laugh. With the hope to conqueer big money and a lovely ballerina’s heart, the boy tries to find the amount to play. But when he realises that there is no money to be won and that he turns out to be the old man’s fool, the target suddenly changes and becomes human.

Taras tomenko depicts the image of an abandonned childhood in desperate search for bearings and goals in life. Despite his great efforts, the boy fails to win the money and he eventually yields to the temptation of another escape - easy drugs, anger and the need of justice.

Ukraine 1998, 9 min

Presentations:

Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 1998

In a quiet morning, a man comes out of a wooden trailer. The weather is still fresh. He pulls on a coat and goes off to work with a swinging walk.

The din of the machines and the bellowing of the cows in the slaughterhouse puts an end to the peaceful morning. The mechanism of the cog-wheels gives the pace and compels the poor man to commit the irreversible act. The cattle, taken away with violence by the chains are now reduced to skinless corpses, mere pieces of meat. In spite of himself, the man has become a link in this infernal chain.

It is against this imperious mechanism, symbol of the duty to accomplish in the socicety, that Taras Tomenko stands up and introduces doubt and hope. When the man is asked to kill a horse, the slaughter comes back to his human nature. The memories of his childhood slowly reappear like forgotten fragments, and reveal the absurdity of his duty. Killing this horse comes back to killing numinous and beloved moments. And this is purely unbearable to him.

Taras Tomenko underlines here with strength the dissonance that may exist between a man’s true nature and his inescapableduties. When the harmony is broken, inner conflict is unavoidable and it fuels mechanisms of inhibition and compensation inside of us that are too often assimilated to incapacity or weakness.