Zhuki in the Cinema and Literature Project “Metanoia 2.0”

The Theatre na Zhukah partnered with Doc Kino Transformatsiya Studio in making a TV movie after L’Étranger by Albert Camus. This movie de facto opens the new cycle of TV program Metanoia where Victor Marynchak, a renowned scholar and a minister, shares his thoughts about the outstanding literary works.

Actors of the Theatre na Zhukah took part in the fragments illustrating the storyline and the thoughts of V. Marynchak.
“For us, this is a totally new experience that is fundamentally different from the theater. In fact, we have tried ourselves in the filming and now we are beginning to understand what it’s like. We all had an interesting and productive time. We are grateful to Doc Kino Transformatsiya for the cooperation and hope it will carry on. I think, eventually, it may evolve into a truly solid fiction film project”, points out Dmytro Ternovyi, director of the Theatre na Zhukah.
The movie had its premiere on September 22 in Kharkiv Philharmonic.

The idea of the Metanoia cycle belongs to Volodymyr Chistilin, a Kharkiv journalist and public activist, and Dmytro Konovalov, the founder of the Doc Kino Transformatsiya Studio.

The first part of the Metanoia cycle comprising of ten TV programs was made in 2016-2017. The shows were dedicated to “Master and Margarita” (Bulgakov), “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (Hemingway), “Crime and Punishment” (Dostoyevsky), “Doctor Zhivago” (Pasternak), “Faust” (Goethe), “Hamlet” (Shakespeare), “Sin” (Vynnychenko), “The Stone Host” (Lesya Ukrainka), poems by Vasyl Stus and “Student” by Anton Chekhov. The entire cycle was presented last spring on the national TV channel “Espresso TV”.

The main idea of the program was to tackle the most topical issues of contemporary life through the prism of the literary works and to try rethink the ways of modern life, find the answers to the questions set by the authors and move on to handling the new questions.

Metanoia 1.0 was presented as an interview with Victor Marynchak who remained the main character in Metanoia 2.0 cycle, thinking over the widely known stories. However, the authors of the cycle abandoned the interview format and now the storyline is presented along with fragments of fiction films.

V. Marynchak is a scholar of language and literature who has been working as the lecturer in the Karazin National University of Kharkiv for about 50 years; senior priest of the Church of St. John the Evangelist (Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate); founder of the first Ukrainian parish in the Eastern Ukraine whose first service took place on August 19, 1991 (the day of the Soviet coup d’état attempt).

The Doc Kino Transformatsiya Studio was founded by Dmytro Konovalov in 2007 with the intent of making the indie films. Movies made by the studio were presented at the international film festivals and on the national TV channels: “Homeward” (2017) earned the Audience Award and finished No. 2 at the Public Projector Festival; “War and the City” (2015) was No. 2 movie at the Kinodoc Fest and passed the official selection at AFFI DOCS in Washington D.C. (USA); “The Displaced Ones” (2014) was No. 1 at the Heart to Heart contest of the movies about volunteers; “Kharkiv” (2010) won a special prize of the jury at the AT Films Festival Warsaw (Poland).