Piotr Armianovski, Mustard in the Gardens
March 3–30, 2021
Join us on e-flux Video & Film: staff picks for the online and world premiere of Piotr Armianovski’s Mustard in the Gardens (2018), on view from Wednesday, March 3 through Tuesday, March 30, 2021.
“Piotr Armiahovskyi’s Mustard in the Gardens is a deeply moving, personal and complex commentary on the war in Ukraine. At first the film seems deceptively direct and simple: a young woman named Olena arrives to a village in the Donetsk region to visit the house where she spent her childhood. The images are striking and poetic, and look as though they were composed effortlessly with simple means and without a script. At the same time, the intelligence and emotional complexity of the performance by the protagonist Olena Apchel, as well as the remarkable photography and flawless editing give this work a tremendous power.”
—Anton Vidokle, e-flux
Piotr Armianovski, Mustard in the Gardens, 2018
37 minutes
Olena is going home, to the village where she spent her childhood, now part of the “grey zone” conflict line of the Russian-Ukrainian war. In the garden, her brother has planted mustard to prevent weeds from getting into their neighbors’ garden. Olena lies down in the prickly grass and recalls how big and tasty the apricots, the cherries, the pears used to be.
Piotr Armianovski (Donetsk, 1985) is a performer and filmmaker. Armianovski holds a MSc in Computer Science, and has studied theater and performance art in Kyiv, Lviv, and Moscow. Since the war started in his home city, Armianovski’s work focuses on documentary. His films have received awards at Docudays UA, Open Night, and Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, and in 2020 he received the Gaude Polonia scholarship by the Ministry of Arts and National Heritage of Poland. He works and lives in Kyiv.
About the program
e-flux Video & Film: staff picks is a monthly streaming program of staff picks and recommended videos designed to disrupt the monotony of an algorithm. Before the end times of big data, we used to discover suggested content along dusty shelves in video rental stores, where post-it notes scribbled by shift workers implored us to experience the same movies that made them guffaw, scream, or weep. Sometimes the content bored us, sometimes it overwhelmed us, and sometimes, as if by magic, it was just right. e-flux invites you to relive this rental store mode of perusal, with personalized picks curated through judgment that does not take into consideration your viewing history.
For more information, contact program [at] e-flux.com.
