No! No! No! Ukrainian Artists’ Films

Join us at e-flux Screening Room for a screening of Piotr Armianovski’s Mustard in the Gardens (2018), and Mykola Ridnyi’s NO! NO! NO! (2017).

Piotr Armianovski’s and Mykola Ridnyi’s films explore the traces of the post-2014 Russian-Ukrainian war that have been imprinted into the fabric of the everyday in the Eastern part of Ukraine. Rather than directly addressing the conflict’s atrocities, both films focus on the emotions, uncertainties, and ruptures that the extended state of war has inflicted on the everyday lives of young Ukrainians.

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…

Mykola Ridnyi, NO! NO! NO! (2017, 22 minutes) 
The main protagonists of this film are young people from Kharkiv, a city located in the Eastern part of Ukraine, whose early twenties coincided with the breakout of the war in the neighboring region of Donbass. An LGBT activist and poet, a fashion model, a group of street artists, a creator of a computer game—all of them are artists or working in the creative industries, typical of the peaceful life of a big city. However, the proximity to the war affects each of the characters and their activities. The protagonists react and reflect political events through their specific relationships to social media and to the urban space around them.

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.

Mykola Ridnyi (b. 1985, Kharkiv, Ukraine) is an artist, filmmaker, and essayist living and working in Kyiv. He graduated in 2008 from the National Academy of Design and Arts in Kharkiv. Since 2005, he has been a founding member of the SOSka group, an art collective which has curated and organized a large number of art projects in Kharkiv. Since 2017, he is the co-editor of the online magazine Prostory. Ridnyi works across media ranging from site-specific installations and sculpture to photography and experimental films. His works have been shown in exhibitions and film festivals including Transmediale at HKW in Berlin (2019), 35th Kassel documentary film festival (2018), The Image of War at Bonniers konsthall in Stockholm (2017), All the World’s Futuresat the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), The School of Kyiv - Kyiv Biennale (2015), and other venues. Website.

Please buy tickets or donate here. All proceeds from ticket sales and donations will go toward the distribution of food and medicine in Ukraine. 

For more information, contact program [​at​] e-flux.com.