HISTORY AND I/CULTURE

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Film not to blame

Why film crews are not welcome in the Crimea

ON THE FILM SET OF TARAS BULBA (NOT IN BAKHCHESARAI)

SIMFEROPOL-At a special press conference in Symferopil Andrii Artov, the head of the Crimean Republican Association Ecology and the World, explained why film crews are not welcome in the Crimea. Crimean ecologists are outraged by the way Russian film director Fyodor Bondarchuk’s film crew behaved at the Kazantyp Nature Preserve during the shooting of the movie The Inhabited Island. “Tanks and cars were used during the shoot, and shots and explosions were heard. We recorded the deaths of rare lizards species - the four-striped boa and yellow-bellied lizard, endangered species listed in the Red Book of Ukraine - which were crushed by the caterpillar treads of military vehicle tracks,” Artov explained.

The head of the ecological association reported that during the verification of the crew’s documentation it was discovered that one of the provisions of the permit stated: “The State Preserves Service has no objections to filming the above-mentioned scenes on public access roads as well as in areas of the nature preserve for scientific and ecological-educational purposes in accordance with current legislation.” The crew’s use of heavy military technology, which damaged the upper layer of earth and destroyed flora and fauna in the preserve, is a violation of state law. Despite the significant damage, the Kazantyp Nature Preserve received barely 100,000 hryvnias in compensation.

In a similar case, a protest against shooting films in the Crimea took place recently in Bakhchesarai. News agencies reported that local Mejlis activists wreaked havoc on the set of director Volodymyr Bortko, who is shooting scenes for his film Taras Bulba, based on the Mykola Hohol novel. The incident occurred near the Khan’s Palace. Bortko had planned to shoot a short scene near the former residence of the Crimean khans: the scene shows Taras Bulba’s son Ostap recalling his time in Turkish captivity. It called for actors portraying exhausted Cossacks clapped in chains and Tatar overseers meting out cruel treatment to them.

At the designated time 50 actors wearing make-up and costumes gathered near the palace, and the equipment brought by six trucks was set up. Everything was ready to roll when several staff members from the Crimean Tatar Museum of History and Culture of the Bakhchesarai State Historical-Cultural Preserve showed up, declaring that they had not given Bortko permission to shoot there. They also said that the unfinished picture distorts history and gives a false portrayal of the Crimean Tatars.

The director insisted that he had all the necessary documentation, but to avoid escalating the conflict, he decided to move the shooting area away from the palace. But that gesture did not improve matters. Later the protesters were joined by Crimea’s Mufti Emirali Amlaiev, leader of the Bakhchesarai Mejlis Akhtem Chiigoz, and the head of the Bakhchesarai Raion State Administration Ilmi Umerov. They supported the opinion that the movie is offensive to Tatars.

The film crew took their equipment and left Bakhchesarai. Now it is looking for a place to shoot on the southern coast of the Crimea. “This project is very important for the self-awareness of the nations that inhabit Ukraine and Russia. I am very sorry that we were greeted this way. I love the Crimea very much and I would like to shoot there,” Bortko told journalists from the Crimean television channel ITV. “This film does not discredit Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, or Poles. This is simply what our very complex history was like.”

“The claims that the film crew did not have a permit are fantasies. Earlier I had a meeting with the city mayor, where we discussed ways that the city could assist the film crew. The militia designated officers to maintain order. Unfortunately, they were not able to uphold order because some activists granted themselves the right to censure world classics,” Serhii Yurchenko, a member of the Bakhchysarai Raion Council, told journalists.

Volodymyr Bortko, who directed The Heart of a Dog and the serials The Idiot and The Master and Margarita, is now shooting the last scenes of Taras Bulba. Bohdan Stupka plays the lead role in the film.

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