OWR #16 warm-up: Can there be healing through art? Focus Ukraine
One year since Russia invaded Ukraine and blew up stability in the region, EUNIC Romania network and the International Documentary & Human Rights Film Festival One World Romania awaits its audience at a film screening, followed by a debate about the role of art in processing trauma, respectively in understanding and fixing reality.
The documentary"The Hamlet Syndrome" tells the story of five young people who take part in a unique production that aims to draw parallels between their wartime experiences and Shakespeare's play "Hamlet". For each of them, the stage is a platform for the expression of suffering, through the famous question "To be or not to be?", a dilemma that also applies to their lives. The characters struggle with disappointment, helplessness
and anger, trying to rebuild their lives while processing the painful past and the experience of the 2014 Crimean War: Slavik was taken prisoner, Katya yearns for her mother's forgiveness for joining the army, Rodion escaped from Donbas and now faces growing homophobia, Roman is still struggling with traumatic memories from the war, when he worked as a paramedic on the front, and Oxana is struggling on the artistic front as an actress.
After the film we will discuss the effects that a year of conflict has on the individual and collective psyche (both for Ukrainian citizens and us, the neighboring and host population) and analyze to what extent art can be a therapeutic tool, whether you practice it professionally or not. They will participate: Olena Illienko is a cinema, theater actress and fitness trainer from Kyiv. She graduated from the Faculty of Cinematography in 1986 and since then has played almost 40 roles in films and series. She is part of the JART theater team, which successfully participates in pantomime and physical theater festivals. In addition, Olena has 30 years of experience in the coaching profession of various classes, including Stretching, Eco Fitness, Mind Body, with a fitness coaching diploma from the French Federation of Physical Education and Gymnastics and the University of Sports Education of Kiev. In Bucharest, she coordinates a mindfulness program for refugees from Ukraine. Ksenia Kozlovskaya is a dance instructor and choreographer. She comes from Kiev and has been doing Latin dances for more than 12 years, but she has been an instructor for only 7 years. After the first large-scale show in 2017, participation in the most important dance events in Germany, Poland, Turkey and Ukraine followed. Ksenia has a dance school in Kiev. In Romania, she works as a youth worker at the Romanian Angel Appeal and leads her Xena's Reinas team remotely, because the work continued with the girls who chose to stay in Ukraine. In January, the band presented a new show, Malaguena, performed under extremely harsh conditions amid the roar of war alarms and bombings. Skype was helpful, but up to a point. Valentin Arsene is an independent specialist psychotherapist, supervisor in integrative trauma psychotherapy and member of the Institute for the Study and Treatment of Trauma (ISTT) since its foundation in 2010.
Tickets: eventbook
Details: oneworld.ro
and anger, trying to rebuild their lives while processing the painful past and the experience of the 2014 Crimean War: Slavik was taken prisoner, Katya yearns for her mother's forgiveness for joining the army, Rodion escaped from Donbas and now faces growing homophobia, Roman is still struggling with traumatic memories from the war, when he worked as a paramedic on the front, and Oxana is struggling on the artistic front as an actress.
