FILMS/
ORANGE REVOLUTION
Documentaries
USA, 2007, 106 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Thu, May 3 / 03:45 / Kabuki / ORAN03K
Sun, May 6 / 08:45 / Kabuki / ORAN06K
Thu, May 10 / 03:30 / Kabuki / ORAN10K
CREDITS
- dir
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Steve York
- prod
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Steve York
- cam
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Steve York
- editor
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Joseph Wiedenmayer
- source
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York Zimmerman, Inc., 2233 Wisconsin Avenue North West Suite 502, Washington, D.C. 20007 EMAIL: mzimmerman@yorkzim.com
"It’s exhilarating to watch what happens when ordinary people . . . recognize their own power and decide to take action," says Steve York, director of this politically charged documentary. He began tracking Ukraine’s presidential campaign in the summer of 2004, before opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned. In November, after an election riddled with fraud, hundreds of thousands of ordinary people filled the streets of Kyiv to express outrage at a government that had treated them with contempt. Orange Revolution tells this story in words, pictures and music and without narration. With a small digital camera, York recorded the rebellious denizens of the tent city set up in Independence Square. We hear from Yushchenko, his campaign managers, journalists, students and workers in the street. We face stony police across an orange- and flower-strewn barrier. Infectious music from local rock bands provides the score and enlivens scenes of social uprising. GreenJolly’s political rap, "Together We Are Many," blasts through loudspeakers and is chanted throughout the tent city as the uprising’s unofficial anthem. Culled from more than 300 hours of original and archival material, including footage never before seen even in Ukraine, this is an invigorating, emotional call to action. Most moving are the faces of unnamed people who brave exhaustion, snow and freezing temperatures: young people with orange hair, old women in colored scarves, workers from provincial towns. Determined and exuberant, they share sandwiches, sleep on floors and escalators and dance in the streets. "This is not about Viktor Yushchenko," a youth explains. "It means we have moved into a whole new era."
—Kathleen Denny
U.S. Premiere. This film is competing for a Golden Gate Award. Sponsored by Sundance Cinemas Kabuki. Presented in association with the World Affairs Council of Northern California.