As a self-described “movie guy,” I’ve often found documentaries a tough genre to break into. My biases often paint them as bleak or sterile looks at how the human race is failing one another. Movies are my means of escaping those harsh realities. Maksym Melnyk is not interested in painting that picture though. His portrait of his subjects shines a light on the warmth and humor that humans develop when they find themselves on hard times.
Three Women, the film Melnyk made to graduate University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf in Berlin and Potsdam, has played at festivals in Germany, France, Poland, Ukraine and the U.S., and earned his alma mater awards for Best Documentary and Best Film.
The film follows three Ukrainian women — a biologist, a farmer and a post office clerk — in the village of Stuzhytsya, a cold place located in the Carpathian Mountains. The documentary was filmed during Ukraine’s 2019 presidential election and sees the people of Styzhytsya grappling with the lack of young people remaining in the village.
Little Village had a chance to view the film and talk with Melnyk ahead of his appearance in Iowa City at FilmScene as part of the theater’s Vino Vérité series which spotlights up-and-coming filmmakers.
Three Women will be playing at the Chauncey on Sunday at 7 p.m. with a director Q&A to follow. Tickets are available through icfilmscene.org.
What was your inspiration for this film?
I have to say I had no inspiration. I’m not a person who is waiting for some inspiration. I just dive into a story. And that’s it. And there are just topics that interest me very much. I first met the women, two of them, when I worked as a local reporter for a local TV station. I was supposed to make reports about politicians, economy; I was not really into it. I [had] an idea, “I will make a report about bats.” So I went to the national park and I met Nicola, the biologist, and I was absolutely carried away with her character. And, of course, with a car which was always falling apart — luckily enough, I had a friend traveling with me. I invited her, a friend from Berlin, she came to visit me in Ukraine. And she was like, following me on this trip, I was doing my job as a reporter.
At the end, she said, “Max, why don’t you make a film about the three women?” So the idea actually came from my friend who was just observing the situation. I was so much absorbed into my work as a journalist that I didn’t see the three characters as [an] independent story. So it was the inspiration, it was the desire to tell the story of my [home] country.
It’s clearly a very personal story. Have you kept up with them in the time since?
Of course, I’m in touch with them, with the three of them because, as you said, it’s a very, very personal film and I always avoid watching it and seeing it with the public. Well, if they invite me I come for Q&A’s, but I avoid watching it. But it was a really personal story and it gets me back and to those feelings. I’m in touch with the three of them. It would be absolutely impossible not to be in touch with them.
You struck this amazing balance of warmth, given the harsh things that you had to cover in the film. Is that something that you had to work at in editing? Or was that just the natural environment of the town?
I think this is the natural part of the surroundings, of the atmosphere. And I guess every protagonist has some kind of humor. Probably me also, [as] a protagonist. The way I see things and if I want to make a film, then I want to have some humor, because I guess different people will be looking at the same thing, but they will see differently. But I do think that this is also in the air of those people, because you cannot get around, you cannot get by, if you don’t have this humor. [It] knock[s] you down, that social reality, the absence of money. You need to be self-ironic, a little bit.
The scene when I’m talking to the post-lady, Maria. She’s going up the hill to her home. It was after her birthday party. And she says, “I have never seen the sea. I saw it only on the TV. At least I have a TV set.” This is something that, yeah, she’s very critical of her life, and it’s very sad moment, but at the same time, she makes a joke out of it. It’s just this self irony is very, very, very much present. That people are not taking themselves too serious.
One last question, how did Hanna like her birthday present? She seemed very excited about the bag. But what was in the bag?
Oh, it’s uh, it’s personal. There was a small present. She liked it very much.
Okay, good. I just wanted to know that she liked it.
Oh, yes, she still has it. Well, there was also a very nice– another present, but it was not in the film. We gave her an umbrella. She always wanted to have a nice umbrella. And hers was very old. So we got her an umbrella with a big name, “Berlin.” We had a wonderful scene that all of a sudden, it started to rain, and very heavily. And we were following her to the church, we were filming her, and then she took it out from her back and there was this umbrella with “Berlin” — but it’s not in the film.
