Visual practitioners

Just about the film

“Power is not something that dominates us, but something that we create.”
M. Hardt, A. Negri. "Empire".
Motive film "Yaroslavl.ok" was the fact of the victory of an independent candidate for Yaroslavl mayoral elections in April 2012. The event became resonant, went beyond the context of the political life of just one city, became significant for all of Russia.
The election campaign itself, its methods and the result awakened political activity in the townspeople, hitherto unobservable, and changed them. The film was shot a month after the elections, and captured the townspeople's thoughts on the events that took place, their understanding the situation, thoughts about yourself, your life in the city and further plans.
There are no elections or mayor in the film. The film is rather not about power, but about how citizens give a chance and opportunity to the city administration work in collaboration with them, creating an environment suitable for comfortable life.

About the method.
The film is a combination interviews with participants and specially filmed street performances at urban themes. The heroes of the film were the art director of the central cinema, public figure from the business sector, shop owner intellectual literature, dancer and event organizer, businessman and amateur local historian, creators of the city information resource and street art activist.
The film was shot according to the principles of extended cinema, including documentary, video art and performance. In addition, the screen consists of two parts, each of which shows a separate picture based on the plot of the film. Thus, the authors strive compress screen time and achieve a cognitive effect when watching bihemispheric perception.

Yaroslavl.ok (program text)

"Yaroslavl.ok" - documentary film, open process finale, filmed quickly, reportage, in a rough, careless manner. This a snapshot of the sentiments of culturally active urban communities, trying to symptomatically capture still fresh impressions of events related to election of a new mayor.

The authors contacted representatives from very different professional areas. The film aimed not only to depict the state of mind of the participants, but most importantly,  reveal their ability, or rather, their will to cooperate. Completion film will not be the end of all mutually agreed actions, but should serve as the basis to continue work on modeling public space. This is what will happen the purpose of the film is to jointly bring about the emergence of social effects, to be their initiators, investors and distributors.

The social effects in question are the elimination disunity of localized communities, creation of flexible communications, cultivation of problem areas. Such effects can generate more an extensive community of initiative, energetic people who know how to develop only themselves, but also to be a source of positive movements in society.

The program on which the film is based includes three organizing principles: expansion, mixing and circulation.

Expansion – going beyond the everyday circle of relationships and issues and problems. Pushing the boundaries of the possible to a new range, discovering the distance for growth, realizing what has long been postponed.

Mixing is an entrance into the space of communication, free exchange of ideas, experiences, emotions. Awareness of the openness of the environment, creation activity centers.

Circulation is the coordination of the interaction of activity centers, mutual attention and participation in each other’s activities in various complex combinations.

The heroes of the film are the art director of the central cinema, public figure from the business sector, owner of an intellectual store literature, dancer and event organizer, businessman and amateur local historian, creators of a city information resource and street art activist

The screen space is organized according to the principle two-channel video. The two visual streams consist of participant interviews and sketch inclusions from their living environment. Display synchronization condenses screen time, accessible complicates language.           

Also included in the structure of the narrative are short performative fragments performed by the film’s co-authors Yulia Krivtsova and Sergei Kremnev, who visually rethink the plot issues and serve generalization and development of the film’s ideas in the next joint project “Take Back Yourself” city." They contain themes of rapprochement and return, acceptance and care for the city.

The implementation of the declared program will enrich cultural diversity of the local environment will help you to be bolder and more effective implement new transformative projects in social, economic and cultural spheres.