Kyiv School of Scientific Cinema in Audiovisual Art and Production: Documentary and Popular Science Film Texts

Author

Mekh Nataliia

a Doctor of Philology, a professor, Honored Worker of Education of Ukraine, head of the Department of Screen and Stage Arts and Culturology of M. Rylskyi Institute for Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine).

ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5846-505X

Kyiv School of Scientific Cinema in Audiovisual Art and Production: Documentary and Popular Science Film Texts

Abstract

The main attention of the article is focused on the Ukrainian audiovisual space, in particular on such a phenomenon as the Kyiv School of Scientific Cinema. The school has played a fundamental role in the formation of the modern language of audiovisual art and influenced significantly the development of Ukrainian documentary. “Kyivnaukfilm” has become its base in fact. Its artistic production is always a high level of professional design and, at the same time, these artistic products are filled with deep meanings, relevant scientific ideas of the world level.

The innovative approach of directors who are passionate about scientific experiments is considered as a feature of the Kyiv School of Scientific Cinema. The essence of this approach is to recreate a scientific experiment in the “here and now” mode, where the viewer has the opportunity to immerse himself directly in the process and become a witness to research in various fields of knowledge, where the documentary or popular science film text become a kind of platform, a space of the experiment.

Nowadays, the legendary film studio “Kyivnaukfilm”, where the Kyiv School of Scientific Cinema was born, actually exists in two manifestations. Starting from 1993, it is transformed into two separate state companies: “Ukranimafilm” – which sphere of interests includes animation production and “National Cinematheque of Ukraine”, which has taken over the popular science and documentary areas of activity. However, it should be emphasized that this group has played a fundamental role in the formation of intellectual and cultural heritage, world leadership in the creation of popular science cinema, education and popularization of science, preserved historical memory and Ukrainian cultural code, and also become a mirror of the epoch, a reflection of the scientific picture of the world of a certain time period.

The heritage of the Kyiv School of Scientific Cinema stimulates new generations of filmmakers to rethink scientific experiments through documentary, to combine aesthetic, ethical issues and the process of learning new things. The school has formed the foundations of “intellectual cinema”, where screen art entertains as well as becomes a tool of knowledge and contributes to the formation of a scientific worldview and understanding the scientific method as the basis of science. The best examples of products of past eras inspire modern documentarians, creators of scientific cinema, to experimental formats. Preservation of intellectual heritage, including the artistic production of the “Kyivnaukfilm” cinema studio, is an important task for future generations of artists of the audiovisual direction of art, who experiment and develop the genre of scientific cinema today.

Keywords

audiovisual art and production, scientific cinema, scientific documentary, science, scientific and technological progress, Kyiv School of Scientific Cinema, popular scientific cinema, film text, new types of cinema equipment and technologies.

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