The Living Fire

Writer & Director: Ostap Kostyuk

A four-year-long project documenting three generations of Ukrainian Carpathian shepherds in their struggle to keep the age-old trade alive in the face of contemporary changes.

The film follows three men of different generations living in the Ukrainian Carpathians: Ivan is an 82-year-old retired shepherd who lives a lonely life, having recently buried his wife. At the same time, nine-year-old Ivanko is just beginning his life and studying at the county boarding school, while 39-year-old Vasyl is raising young lambs on his farm. But when spring comes, all three men will head for the mountains following the shepherd’s calling that is becoming ever more difficult to sustain in the contemporary world.

The title - “living fire” - is the name that highland shepherds give to their central campfire—a protective fire whose flame must remain lit for the entire four-month herding season. The age-old ritual of lighting the “living fire” was maintained in the Hutsul region until the middle of the 20th century.

It is a film about pitiless daily labor that knows no weekends, a harmonious world that we’ve lost in our search for comfort, and the childhood that is left behind when one takes on the role of an adult…

Documentary
77/52 min

Year
2014

World premiere
2015

Production
National Cinematheque of Ukraine, 2014; TV 52 min.: MaGiKa Film, 2016

Financial support:
With support by the State Film Agency of Ukraine

Screenings and festivals:

25/05
2016See Ukraine. Docudays UA on Tour Athen, Greece, Exile Room
11/05
2016Osteuropa in Berlin, Panda-Theater in der Kulturbrauerei
07/03
2016Salem Film Festival 2016
20/01
2016See Ukraine. Docudays UA on Tour Paris, France
16/01
2016In Ukrainian Film Club Munich, Germany
09/12
2015Docudays UA in Berlin
09/12
2015Ukrainian Cinema Days in London
04/12
201518th Olympia Int'l Film Festival for Children and Young People (Greece)
03/12
2015Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University
25/11
2015Docudays UA in Tel Aviv Hatsrot Yaffo, Tel-Aviv-Jaffa
17/11
2015The Fourth Anthropological Film Festival at The Jerusalem Cinematheque
03/11
2015Minsk International Film Festival "Listapad"
23/10
201551st Chicago International Film Festival
21/10
201551st Chicago International Film Festival, USA Premiere
17/10
2015Ukrainian Film Days in Hungary, Budapest
03/10
201511th Zurich Film Festival International Documentary Film, Competition Arthouse Piccadilly
02/10
2015Reykjavik International Film Festival, Bio Paradis
30/09
201511th Zurich Film Festival International Documentary Film, Competition Arthouse Piccadilly
30/09
2015Reykjavik International Film Festival, Bio Paradis
27/09
2015Reykjavik International Film Festival, Bio Paradis
26/09
201511th Zurich Film Festival International Documentary Film, Competition Corso
17/09
2015GOGOLFEST’15
12/07
20156th Odessa International Film Festival, National Competition
04/07
201550th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Documentary Films Competition
03/07
201550th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Documentary Films Competition, European Premiere
01/05
2015Hot Docs. Canadian International Documentary Festival
30/04
2015Hot Docs. Canadian International Documentary Festival
27/04
2015Hot Docs. Canadian International Documentary Festival, World Premiere
25/03
2015Dom Master Class, Education and Culture Kyiv, Ukraine
25/03
2015Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital Washington, USA
20/03
2015XII Docudays UA, International Documentary Film Festival Kinopanorama Cinema
19/01
2015Ivano-Frankivsk, Cinema "Lumiere" Charitable screening
28/11
2014Lviv, Ukaine, Kinopalac Dovzhenka, Charitable screening
30/10
201444th Molodist, International Film Festival, Ukraine
29/10
201444th Molodist, International Film Festival, Ukraine Ukrainian Premiere
25/05
2016See Ukraine. Docudays UA on Tour Athen, Greece, Exile Room
11/05
2016Osteuropa in Berlin, Panda-Theater in der Kulturbrauerei
07/03
2016Salem Film Festival 2016
20/01
2016See Ukraine. Docudays UA on Tour Paris, France
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