Yuri ILIENKO Юрий ИЛЬЕНКО Youri ILIENKO   USSR (Ukraine), 1965, 72 mn  Black and white, fiction

A Fountain For The Thirsty / A Spring for the Thirsty ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ Родник для жаждущих    Une source pour les assoiffés  Rodnik dlya zhazhdushnikh

Plot synopsis

This film is now considered an important part of the Ukrainian film heritage. It was made in 1965 but was not released until 1987. Director Yuri Ilyenko, who served as a cinematographer on Sergei Paradjanov's acclaimed Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors is widely regarded as a living treasure of Ukrainian cinema. In this impressionistic and spare black-and-white film, evocative imagery dominates the story and there is very little dialogue. The life of a man who lives in a desert oasis is unveiled. He is an old man, and except for the occasional visits of strangers seeking to slake their thirst at the village well, nothing very much happens where he lives. In one scene, the old man himself is seen as imprisoned within the well. In another, a jet flies overhead and a car approaches carrying family members who have brought the old man a tape recorder as a present.
Clarke Fountain, www.allmovie.com

Selected in the following festivals :

- Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF), Moscow (Russia), 2011

- Festival Russian kino 'Moscow Premier Screenings', Moscow (Russia), 2010

- Kyiv International Film Festival 'Molodist', Kiev (Ukraine), 2007

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