Macha Ovtchinnikova Macha Ovtchinnikova is a french filmmaker and researcher from Russia. She's also writing and teaching at University the cinema aesthetics and video art.

Experimenting with different film genres and mediums – documentary, fiction, experimental video – Macha Ovtchinnikova questions the notion of the time and its investment in the film forms: how should we show the memory exploration? How should we report in images and sounds in words and silences on the human experience? The archive images from the 1990s, the women's testimonies, the video projection in the space, or on the mirror, images of contemporary urban landscapes constitute the raw material of her last films and future projects. The video work, "The scar of the earth," relates a tragic episode of the history of the Holocaust in Kiev, through the arid form of the editing, the crisp image colors, the dry cracklings in the soundtrack, the freezing notes in the sound design, the hardness of the words traced at the bottom of the screen.

macha.ovtchinnikova@hotmail.fr

What kind of education or training helped you develop your skillset?

My university studies were theoretic. After preparatory classes for the grandes écoles (hypôkhâgne & khâgne), I continued in University. I am graduated Ph.D. in Film and Visual Studies at University Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3. In parallel to the scientific research, I was working on different film sets like assistant and developing my film projects. 

So I am an autodidact filmmaker. I started to make short movies in the early 15. I've made a few short movies, then a feature film and now I'm preparing a feature documentary. I've also had a chance to learn and experiment with some technics during residencies of editing, video installation, or scriptwriting relative to my film projects in France and Belgium. I've met incredible artists and discovered a lot of artistic practices. Besides, for six years, I'm teaching film aesthetics and practice at University, and this daily exchange, this human and artistic experience is very precious and inspiring. 

How did you start making art?

During my studies at high school and the University, I've regularly made self-produced short movies. In 2014, my first feature film "Les Variations" has been released to cinemas in France. From since while, I am interested in the documentary. After a short film "Body's defeat and victory," I'm developing a feature documentary about the 1990s in Russia with the support of the Hauts-de-France Region and the CNC fund. "The scar of the earth" is in line with my current approach of memory, legacy, and history.

I can say that I'm an autodidact filmmaker because I've never studied film directing or film production. But actually, I've spent a lot of time on my student life and my professional life as a teacher, to watch, analyze movies, from classics to the most modern forms of visual art. So I've learned a lot from studying and experimenting at the same time.           

How do you discuss memories through video narration? How do you successfully express this intention?

Since my childhood, I've heard about a horrible story. In Ukraine, at Babi Yar, during World War II, thousands of Jews were killed, and some were choked under the ground. In my great great-mother's home, a little black-and-white picture represented desert hill covered of dry grass. A small cross traced on the photograph indicated approximately the place where her sister Esfir was buried with her family. This picture haunts me, but I've never seen it, and today it doesn't exist anymore. I asked my mother to return to this family story to make a gesture of memory. 

Before the war, Esfir had a happy family, a husband, and children. They lived in a Jewish neighborhood, close to the Babi Yar ravine to the north of Kiev. The German army took Kiev on September 19, 1941. On September 29, at down thousands of Jews were marched in small groups to the Babi Yar ravine with their suitcases. They were preparing for the long trip. Esfir, her husband, and children were among them. I've chosen the video, my medium of preference, to tell this intimate and universal story. This video retraces a long morning trip: three portions were filmed in the present-day quarter. Babi Yar is an understated remembrance place, that deserted park seems to keep the scars of the earth. The first time I've visited this place, it strikes me by its desolate and impersonal aspect. This video also relates my first painful impression through the arid form of the editing, the crisp image colors, the dry cracklings in the soundtrack, the freezing notes in the sound design, the hardness of the words traced at the bottom of the screen. 

Could you tell us about your great-great-aunt story that has a crucial element in your video work?

This video work is funded on the story of my great-great-aunt. I've never known, but it is also an homage to all these massacred innocent people. I know almost nothing about Esfir and her family. Her sisters and brothers didn't talk about them, about the Jewishness, about the war. They tried to forget, and the Soviet policy wanted to make them forget. And this video deals with these traces, snippets of memory. 

The black-and-white picture and traced cross I was telling about was an invisible, virtual grave of Esfir. It was the only remaining trace of these people; their documents and personal stuff were burned or stolen. But this picture doesn't exist anymore. And the video "The scar of the earth" comes like a memorial act.     

What is the difference between telling this story in person and through your camera?

This story is a very long, terrible, but also deficient heritage. Indeed, that story was never really told with words, dates, information. I had to do a lot of researches about this tragedy, about this place, this city, to retrace my great-great-aunt story. I had to make also a lot of studies in different administrations of Ukraine and Russia to gather names, facts, dates, locations. It was difficult because Jewish records were separated from Russian or Ukrainian records. So I read a lot of testimonies, history studies, I saw many archives, documentaries. That was material to achieve the account, the narration. But there is a fictional part of this video: we can imagine this suffering, we can't describe it. This video is not a document; it is a modest tribute to this memory. 

The words appearing in the film have significant strength. But they don't work like words of novel or poem. They are traces, scars, stigmas plotted on the film, on the earth, in the city. So, the camera is an essential tool for this approach. It can record every different flow: the photography of the landscape of contemporary Kiev and virtual ghosts from the past.             

Which editing software do you usually use? Do you call for new technologies in your artistic production?

I'm using Adobe Premiere Pro. Honestly, I'm not a technician. At first, I have an idea of the story and of the artistic form, and then I try to extend my skills to realize that. Technologies do not inspire me. Sometimes some film textures interest me, but it is just a little part of my work.

What influences your work today, and how do you create?

I try to write every day. My work starts with the writing, so a considerable part of my work is concentrated in the reading, writing, watching films. Maybe because of my education, I'm very affected and influenced by my favorite film directors, Andrei Tarkovski, Kira Muratova, Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, John Cassavetes…     

It doesn't mean I'm directly affected by these films, but these directors forge my artistic look and aesthetic taste.

Can you tell us about one of the most exciting and challenging projects you have worked on?

I am often excited about new projects. And currently, I'm developing a feature documentary, "Chronicles of a decade." This film about the 1990s in Russia, in my native city Volgograd, talks about the personal experiences of different Russian women living there, about hunger as a deep trauma of a whole generation.   

Today, the world is facing the pandemic COVID-19. What is a typical day like for you? How do you continue doing your art under these circumstances?

I have a little boy, so at least half of my day is consecrated to my son. I try to develop a maximum of things at home. I'm working on the scripts for my current or future projects; I'm preparing the planning for the next shooting, I'm also working on conferences and new university courses. But almost, I enjoy family time, and I hope that the world will get better very soon.