DISPATCH FROM PRZEMYŚL (NOTES FOR A DEMOCRATIC EUROPE)
Dispatch from Przemyśl is more than just a film, it is an initiative undertaken on the twenty-first day of the war between Ukraine and Russia to provide support in Poland and to deliver a suitcase of food and medicine to Ukraine.
The film reports on the situation at the railway station in Przemyśl, which is about ten kilometres from the Ukrainian border in south-eastern Poland. It is a collection of interviews that captures in the silver salts of the film stock the very breath of those fleeing the war and of those on their way to it.
In the first part, the aesthetic of this black and white film brings to mind images from the Second World War, while the ones in the second part are evocative of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s. The content, however, which hinges on civil solidarity and the defence of democracy, belies this aesthetic, opening a gap between what is seen and what is said.
Location: Przemyśl, Poland, March 2022
Camera: Aaton XTR +
Lens: Zeiss 12–120 mm prime
Stock: Kodak 7219/500T
Directors of photography (image and camera):
Marine Hugonnier and Tom Haudry
Sound: Jan Moszumanśki
Editing: Marine Hugonnier
Assistant Editor: Heather Mills
Sound editor: Jan Moszumanśki
Sound Studio: César Mamoudy – Studio 6 heures, Paris
Grading: Herbert Posch – Vidéo de Poche, Paris
Still photography and translation: Tonya Polskaya
Fixer: Michal Siarek
Stage management and poetry: Grzegorz Ryczywolski
With Tonya Polskaya, Sharon Faison,
Olena Ignatenko, Maria Kovalenko, Eduard Yurovskyy,
Christina Atovska, Mariya Vasilevskaya, Ali Khamdar, Weronika,
Olga and Anna
Translation from the Ukrainian: Maria Ivanchyshyn
Translation from the Polish: Marta Czaban
Music: Piano Octet in D minor, Op. 6:II Adagio by Józef Krogulski
performed by Nelson Goerner
Film laboratory: Kafard films, Paris`
Production: Anna Lena Films – Florence Cohen, East Beast – Malgorzata Koziol, Nowhere Films – Malgorzata Szumowska
With the support of the Jeu de Paume, Paris, and Fabra i Coats: Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Ajuntament de Barcelona
Project selected and supported by the patronage commission of the Fondation des Artistes
Special thanks to Jan Moszuman´ski who drove the package from the Polish-Ukrainian border to Kyiv in Ukraine, Volodymyr Volyk who then drove it from Kyiv to Chernihiv, and Yurij Litvinenko who distributed its contents distributed its content to the people of Tchernihiv
The suitcase was put together from donations made by the crew of the film and the teams at the Jeu de Paume, the Fondation des Artistes, Anna Lena Films in Paris, Fabra i Coats: Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Ajuntament de Barcelona, as well as donations from Michael Newman, Sophie Cohen, Isabelle Hugonnier, Bernard Hugonnier, Marie-Astrid van Buuren, Del Ruby Winters, Anne Vigouroux, Nathalie Bertaux, Lucas Gabellini-Fava and Alyosha Fayos Hugonnier
Acknowledgements: Anna Lena Vaney, Alix and Théodore Hugonnier, RVZ Location, Frédéric Lombardo, Philippe Guillemain, Bruno Philip, Hélène Bienvenue,
Marta Ponsa, Quentin Bajac, Romane de Montgrand, Lætitia Moukouri,
Joana Hurtado Matheu, Clara Renau, Laurence Maynier, Caroline Cournède, Olivier Fontenay, Lila Gleizes, Sylvie Lardin, Simon Rolland, Maxime Berger,
Damien Perrollaz and Alexandre Nazarian