The combination of archival materials with contemporary observations of life creates a holistic picture of the world in its development and duality. In the context of the Archive, it is interesting to explore interconnected categories such as war and death, faith and fear, violence and control, culture and acceptance, progress and ignorance, truth and values, dictatorship and the search for freedom. The film creates a space in which the heroes of the past, from archival materials, can communicate, albeit indirectly, with contemporaries. The study of archival materials shows that humanity repeatedly experiences violence, wars, and cruelty. Yet, the thirst for life prevails, and history begins anew—only on the next level of scientific progress. In general, Archives embody the global human experience, which cannot influence the future or prevent the cyclical nature of history. But over time, the Archive can serve as an advocate, prosecutor, and judge in certain historical events.
2023 | Marche du Film’s showcase
2023 | IDFA Spotlight award at Baltic Sea Forum
2022 | Göteborg Film Festival pitch
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
Few years ago, when I was researching some archival materials, I came to the Ukrainian State Archive in Kyiv. I was impressed by the specifics of this place and the people who worked there. Since then, I have been thinking of researching not only archival materials but also the everyday life of the Archive, its workers, visitors and work process. A place where happiness, tragedy, history and ashes of the human spirit ironically coexist in the form of actual, tactile memory. The whole history of mankind is built on contrasts: chaos and system, love and hate, war and peace, progress and ignorance. Sometimes, it is small details that intertwine the contexts of events and our attitude towards them. The events of the past, present, and future are, in fact, interconnected, creating a sense of continuity in their movement. In ARCHIVE. BOX#64 I would like to depict the scenes of the typical archive’s daily life—full of happiness or sadness, filled with humour and irony, making special emphasis on the study of archival information in the historical and philosophical context; finding ways for humanization of society; popularisation of the phenomenon of archiving; and how this accumulated knowledge can be a useful tool in confrontation with the modern-day informational war, threatened by global disinformation and the rise of fakes. Does knowledge itself have sufficient strength to prevent new tragedies?
After all, life has entered a new circle with the ongoing war in Ukraine — like one hundred years ago, our country is threatened to be destroyed by the aggressor, the national culture and identity – erased. History has shown that mistakes and dangers from the past may come back with a new force, while the fight for freedom becomes existential in order to survive. The study of historical facts and archives during the war, and even in the pre-war period, raises many questions, some of which remain rhetorical. But isolating them and bringing them into the field of collective awareness is an organic and inevitable process. And not only for Ukrainians.
PRODUCER’S NOTE
We are at the early development stage and we are looking for the financing to dig into documentary observation filming at the Ukrainian State Archive in Kyiv. Observation of the archive’s daily life, its employees, visitors at the Ukrainian State Archive in Kyiv – this is what we are planning to arrange with Rōman Himey, as the film’s cinematographer, and Svitlana Hryhorenko, the film’s editor and long-term collaborator since 2018.
We plan to finalise the research shooting by May 2025, and to make a fundraising teaser by the end of June 2025.
June 2025 – February 2026: searching and securing financing, search for partners, principal photography, initial editing.
January – November 2026 – editing, participation in editing /rough cut/ workshops and laboratories, music composing and sound design, image and sound post-production, searching and securing festival and international sales partners.
EVA DZHYSHYASHVILI has graduated from the Ukrainian Institute of Public Relations and Television, department of Documentary Film Directing. Since 2014, she’s been working as a professor of photography at the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, Department of Movies and Television. In 2017, Eva completed the Documentary Film Directing course at Serhiy Bukovsky’s School and crafted her filmmaking skills by participating in educational projects Young People About Ukraine and Docudays UA: CIVIL PITCH. Her documentary feature debut, “Plai. A Mountain Path,” premiered and received the Main Award at the DOCU/UKRAINE Competition in 2022. It has travelled numerous festivals since collecting awards, including the Special Mention and Solidarity Award at the Trento Mountain Film Festival 2023 and the Grand Trophy at the Alpin Film Festival Brasov 2023. Eva also received Ivan Mykolaichuk’s Art Award “Kyiv” for her film in 2023.
Filmography:
2022: “Plai. A Mountain Path” (75’) , documentary, Ukraine https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18307232
2017: “Z.p. Glevaha” , documentary, Ukraine
2016: “Yar” , documentary, Ukraine
2015: “15 minutes more” , documentary, Ukraine