Film Library
Open Access, 2013.  

Original title: Vidkrytyi dostup. Almanakh.
Copyright:  the New Citizen Partnership, Community Organization Center UA, 2013
Format: documentary almanac in five parts
Carrier: DVD
Color: yes
Length: 99 min.
Original language: Ukrainian, Russian, and sourzhyk
English subtitles: yes

   1. Mezhyhir'ya (22 min.)
Director: Volodymyr Tykhy
Camera: Ivan Tymchenko, Ivan Kozlov
Editor: Oleksander Chechykov, Pavlo Osadchy
Executive producer: Yana Semernia

Synopsis. This story is about the reporters' investigation of the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's palatial residence of Mezhyhir'ya, which has become a symbol of the Family's corruption and insatiable greed for self-enrichment at the expense of the Ukrainian taxpayer.

   2. The Afghan (14 min.)
Director. writer, and cameraman: Dmytro Konovalov
Editor: Dmytro Konovalov, Vadym Hrebinnyk
Sound: Mykhailo Petrenko
Executive producer: Dmytro Konovalov

Synopsis. Hennadii Torkachenko, an Afghan War veteran has waited for government to keep its promise and allocate an apartment for his family for twenty-one years. He refuses to give up in the face of endless red tape and corruption.

   3. School (19 min.)
Director and writer: Serhii Andrushko
Camera: V'yacheslav Tsvetkov
Editor: Oleksander Chechykov, Pavlo Osadchy
Sound: Karim Fadl Naser
Executive producer: Yana Semernia

Synopsis. Dozens of parents in the city of Romodan, the Province of Poltava, try to fight local authorities to prevent them from closing down a high school. Thus common Ukrainian citizens seek to exercise the right of their children to free education.

   4. House with Chimeras (16 min.)
Director and writer: Zhanna Dovhych
Camera: Dmytro Sannikov, Sasha Boiko
Editor: Denys Miziuk
Sound: Mykhailo Petrenko
Executive producer: Yana Semernia

Synopsis. A single individual Professor Oleksander Hlukhov is fighting a corrupt system to keep his apartment in a historical building that sits on a highly valuable plot of land in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Corrupt developers supported by the government stop at nothing to quash his resistance.

   5. Cornered (26 min.)
Director: Dmytro Tiazhlov
Editing and color correction: Dmytro Tiazhlov
Cinematographer: Dmytro Tiazhlov
Sound mixing: Karim Fadl Naser
Sound recording on set: Ella Shtyka
Narrator: Maksym Kondratiuk
Executive producer: Ella Shtyka
Produced by the New Citizen Partnership
Featuring residents of the village of Panasivka (District of Myrhorod, Poltava Province), the families of Zoya Shulha, Pavlo Hladky, and Vadym Lohinov.

Synopsis
A determined woman refuses to take a government's no for an answer and mobilizes her fellow-villagers in a campaign to re-establish a bus connection between the village of Panasivka (near Poltava) and civilization. This is a fascinating story of civic society revival in a post-Soviet Ukraine that all too often remains very Soviet two decades after the collapse of the USSR.
======================================================
The documentary Open Access almanac was made thanks to the support of Omidyar Network, Internew Network. It idea was conceived by Svitlana Zalishchuk, general director Volodymyr Tykhy, editor Serhii Andrushko, producer Aksynia Kurina.

Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University© 2015. For more information please contact Yuri Shevchuk