ROOM 482

Room482 is pleased to premier a selection of short films by Ukrainian director Pavel Buryak at Fireman's Memorial Garden in collaboration with anonymous gallery as part of their 7Gardens exhibition

6—8p Friday
October 21. 2022
Fireman's Memorial Garden
Manhattan, NY

BREAKING THE WALLS is the second episode in a series of stories covered for United24 Media, which aims to share a glimpse into the enduring strength of daily life during the war in Ukraine, each recounted through first person narratives. This second episode follows Taras from Dnipro who works as a doctor in a military hospital and plays rugby.

While the war itself began in 2014, full-scale invasion on 24 of February brought it to a whole new level. Taras, 30 y.o. traumatologist from Dnipro hospital, says the difference is so clear that it changed his life drastically. Dnipro is the nearest big city to the front line, so doctors there work 24/7 and see the consequences of this battle for freedom like no other. “We stopped doing sports and other favorite activities, but I think it can’t be compared to what I’m currently doing. People need me here, and if it wasn’t for this, I would probably go to the military,” the doctor says about his work.

During a period of intense warfare in Ukraine in March — April 2022, two artists, Masha Reva and Ivan Grabko, were living and working in the city of Uzhgorod, displaced from their home in Kyiv. Staying in a temporary shelter-studio collectively organized by local artists and architects, they made a series of drawings, paintings and video documents that they later presented in studio of Jonas Burgert in Weissensee, Berlin as an exhibition called UNDER THE OPEN SKY. Titled congruently with the exhibition, Buryak’s documentary film of Reva and Grabko’s time living in displacement during the war on Ukraine.

Buryak is a founding member of RAFESTHETIC, a creative collective of producers, directors, writers that form a Kyiv based Award-winning production company.