A flickering frenzy of street protesters and soldiers on Maidan Square morphing into the queer and techno underground scene in Kiev.
In this stop-motion animation, two pulsing sets of images of street protesters, soldiers and young clubbers perform a fervent dance. One thing connects them: the masks they use to hide their identities, or to become entirely new people.
Tobias Zielony uses the term maskirovka, Russian for ‘disguise’, which has re-emerged to describe the 'masked’ Russian interventions in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, where so-called ‘green men’ occupy Ukrainian territory. Masks also played a crucial role for the Maidan protestors, protecting them from tear gas and concealing their identities. The term refers to the treacherous, vulnerable conditions under which the protesters live and act.
Zielony’s deliberate montage of two intertwined processions of images wilfully transgresses the normal limits of documentary film. He constructs meaning and storyline from frame to frame, scene to scene. The resulting hypnotic effect recalls the stroboscopic lights of the underground clubs and raves in which Maskirovka is set.
DE, 2017, 9’, silent, in loop.
