A Slice of History on Film

Written By Sil Azevedo

A film about the civil uprising against the regime of president Yanukovych that took place in Kyiv, Ukraine in the winter of 2013/14.

Maidan is a film committed to three principles:

1) Slow cinema / long takes

2) Direct cinema

3) A historic documentarian mindset

It succeeds on all three counts.

1) The eleven scenes that compose this film go beyond explaining an event. They allow the committed viewer to immerse themselves into a key moment in contemporary history.

2) The film stays true to its minimalistic vision. No narration, only the absolutely essential context information is shared in written slides between scenes. This can be frustrating to those desiring an easy-to-follow narrative, but other documentaries offer that. This is a different proposition. It rewards those who do the work of observing and researching.

3) The camera has allowed us to record recent history like never before. Director Sergei Loznitsa takes this seriously. His discreet stationary camera is there very much like a silent witness, often unnoticed.

Maidan is not a fun film. It is hard work, a demanding proposition for a generation used to 30 second clips (if that). And because of this, the reward goes way beyond a micro jolt of dopamine. If one devotes a couple hours to this film they'll come out understanding a little more about history, justice and freedom.

Sil Azevedo

I was seven years old when I got my first camera, a Kodak Instamatic 133. It was Christmas of 1973. Since then, I have always seen the world through the lens. It is my way of making sense, of visually dealing with paradoxes and complexities of life. In high school I was the lab rat and spent each free minute at the feet of the Beseler enlarger, hypnotized by its magical light. Still today I enjoy low light ambiences. They say photographers do it in the dark. I am living proof - ha! Architecture school followed as photography was not a career option in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The combination of art, composition, light, form and space, coupled with the demands of physics found in Architecture have their parallel in photography. The concepts are transferable. As I started my career in Architecture, I soon found that I was more excited about the concept and the print than the actual building. Fantasy is my reality. I kept shooting, learning and apprenticing with some incredible artists. In time, as life took its turns, my original passion for photography became my full time profession. It has been almost 20 years since I walked into the pro shop and charged the Hasselblad and the studio lights to my credit card. As he saw the bill and my naive optimism, even the salesman exclaimed, "you're going to have to sell a lot of pictures..." I did and still do, but what drives me is not that. It is the unstoppable desire to understand and to relate. To me, that is photography.

http://silazevedo.com
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A Worthy Struggle