05 September 2024
An Artistic Action in Support of Ukrainian Prisoners of War Took Place on the Red Carpet of the Venice International Film Festival
On September 4, as part of the official program of the 81st Venice International Film Festival, the world premiere of the documentary Songs of the Slowly Burning Land, directed by Olha Zhurba, took place. The film’s crew organized a creative action, “How many kilometers from the red carpet to hell?” drawing attention to the illegal imprisonment of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war by Russia.
The creative team working on the film wore embroidered clothes that depicted the eight names of prisons and colonies and their distance from the island of Lido, which traditionally hosts the Venice International Film Festival.
The film Songs of a Slowly Burning Land is dedicated to the problem of inhumane conditions of detention of Ukrainian military and civilians in Russian captivity. The film depicts only 8 of the more than 170 prisons and torture chambers that we know of, located both in Russia and on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
Russia illegally transfers and imprisons civilians for ethnic, religious, and political reasons, and most of the prisoners are Crimean Tatars. In particular, the embroidery of the filmmaker Olha Zhurba bore the inscription “Pre-trial Detention Centers No. 5, No. 1 | Rostov-on-Don | 2099 km from Lido Island”. In August 2024, six Crimean Tatar activists, illegally accused in the so-called “fifth Bakhchysarai group” case–Abdulmedzhyt Seitumerov, Ametkhan Umerov, Eldar Yakubov, Seidamet Mustafaiev, Remzi Nimetulaiev, and Ruslan Asanov–were transferred to this pre-trial detention center in Rostov-on-Don from the Pre-trial Detention Center No. 2 in Simferopol in occupied Crimea.
“We wanted to remind people of the horrific conditions in which detainees are held, the illegitimate trials and fabricated charges, the torture, and the deaths. About everything that Russia, as a terrorist state, is doing with impunity to individuals who should never have been there in the first place,” highlights Olha Zhurba, the film’s director.
The actions of the Russian Federation against Ukrainian citizens in the temporarily occupied territories systematically violate international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts. We call on the international community not to ignore Russia’s crimes against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war in the temporarily occupied territories, including Crimea. The only way to stop Russian crimes in the temporarily occupied territories is to liberate our lands from the occupiers.