Vertov - Close Relations (2016)

Russian citizen and Soviet-born Ukrainian native Vitaly Mansky crisscrosses Ukraine to explore Ukrainian society after the Maidan revolution as mirrored within his own large Ukrainian family. They live scattered all across the country in Lviv, Odessa, the separatist area in Donbass, and Sevastopol on Crimea. The film is looking for reasons of the conflict after which citizens of a single country found themselves on a different sides of barricades including director's own family. The main narrative takes place in the here and now, starting with the turning point of ex-president Victor Yanukovych's flight to Russia. But below the main narrative there is a strong historical undercurrent, because the lives of protagonists of the film are marked by history on every step they take. This undercurrent will carry information about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict's deep roots in centuries of close ties between the two countries.

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