Oxygen Starvation (1992)

The title of Andriy Donchyk's feature film Oxygen Starvation offers a fitting metaphor for what happened to Ukrainian film-making after the collapse of the USSR. Contrary to widespread expectations, freedom from Soviet oppression did not usher in a renaissance in Ukraine. The momentum of totalitarianism persisted in all spheres of life and took new forms. Despite the abolition of censorship, the glaring absence of creative achievement increasingly looked like a paralysis of the mind. Many rushed to declare Ukrainian cinema brain-dead, incapable of existing under free market conditions. The picture however was much more complex than appears at first glance.