
samizdat 2023 programme
Festival at a glance
12-16 September (CCA Glasgow, in person)
12 September - 5 October (Klassiki, online)
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There was 13 in-person screenings at CCA Glasgow, featuring a total of 10 feature films, 11 shorts, and 9 short animations. Out of 10 features, 4 were retrospectives and 6 were UK premieres.
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Our partner, the streaming platform Klassiki, hosted Samizdat’s online programme comprising 5 features, 5 shorts, and several interviews and discussions.
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5 short films submitted to the festival competed for the Samizdat Audience Award based on audience ratings collected at in-person screenings. Assel Aushakimova’s Comrade Policeman won the Samizdat 2023 Best Short Film award.
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Samizdat had two special events in 2023: a showcase of a collection of Eastern European and Central Asian surrealist animation (14.09) and a screening of Soviet Armenian early film House on the Volcano (1928) (13.09) with an original new score mixed live by its composer Juliet Merchant.





























Key Information
Brochures
Download the festival brochure here: digital file, text-only Word document. Free paper brochures from the CCA could be collected several weeks before the festival.
accessibility
Learn about our accessibility measures, including financial support for attendees, pricing, Closed Captions, content and access notes, venue accessibility, and more, here.

Weightless (Marta Hryniuk, Nick Thomas, 2023) + Short (Burial)
Khrystyna Bunii travels solo across remote south-west Ukraine in pursuit of her anthropological research. As she encounters people and digitises their family photo archives, conversations and interconnections emerge. Conducting visual research into the transnational region of Hutsulshchyna, Bunii pursues a political practice of self-narration from the margins of representation.

My Favourite Job + 100% Off (Sashko Protyah, 2022)
A double-bill of new experimental mixed-media short films about Mariupol evacuations and lootings by Sashko Protyah, a Ukrainian filmmaker, activist, and a volunteer for the IDP and the Ukrainian army.

King Lear: How We Looked for Love During the War (Dmytro Hreshko, 2023)
In the small town of Uzhhorod in western Ukraine, which became a place of refuge for many escaping the Russian invasion, a theatre director is working on an adaptation of King Lear. In this documentary, the Shakespeare play is reflected through the lens of non-professional actors living in displacement, which turns it into an observational and analytical tool that helps to look for love and hope against the background of war.
Online screenings on klassiki
*only available on Klassiki