“The audience will never forsake the cinema”
Kyiv’s Zhovten cinema celebrates its 80th anniversaryA somewhat outdated name doesn’t prevent Zhovten from being one of the most progressive cinemas in Kyiv. It has a quality festival and art-house movies in its repertoire. The cinema has a long history. The first screening of a movie there took place 80 years ago — on January 29, 1931. At that time it was the first cinema erected on the basis of a special project on the territory of the USSR. Today Zhovten is one of the few cinemas in Kyiv where one can watch a good movie, but, unfortunately, at the same time it is a tidbit for raiders. The cinema already managed to beat off five attacks. The sixth one came soon after. Recently the Ministry for Family, Youth and Sports announced that it plans to transform the cinema into the Youth House. One can only wonder in what modern categories our “youth” ministry thinks.
In the opinion of Liudmyla Hordeladze, Zhovten’s director, the key problem of the still immature Ukrainian social sphere is that so far the place of culture, both national and global, is still undefined in state policy.
We called Liudmyla HORDELADZE to ask her about the situation of the cinema before its 80th anniversary:
“The Cinema Zhovten is a member of the international organization Europe-Cinema. This membership presupposes complying with a number of standards on movie quality and number of shows, which the cinema, of course, observes. Besides, every year Europe-Cinema invites us to an international conference where issues that are important for film directors are discussed. Already a few years in a row at such conferences we have been discussing digitization, which can make movie-going considerably cheaper and easier for viewers. So, finally, we were going to install digital equipment in our cinema at our own expense. But since it is the personnel of the cinema that rents the property complex, which is communal property, we must coordinate big and complex transformations in the cinema with the Chief Department for Communal Property of the City of Kyiv. And when we addressed the department with the request to allow us to install the digital equipment, we got a dubiously argued denial. However, we will continue insisting on the necessity of digitization.
“There have also been six attempts to seize the cinema. This was done by several persons acting on behalf of state bodies. I wouldn’t like to touch upon this topic before the holidays. I will only mention that over a thousand signatures of Kyivites were gathered under the appeal to Oleksandr Popov with the request to influence the situation. Everyone wonders why we do not seek Europe’s support. I think we will obligatory do this and then the publicity will be considerable.
“Our audience is the main achievement of our cinema. The community of the city of Kyiv is the real owner of Zhovten. The cinema, as a temple, has already formed its audience: democratic, intellectual, advanced, spiritually sound people belong to it. Therefore I’m sure the audience will never forsake the cinema.”
