Cinema Independence. 10 brightest actresses of the real Ukrainian cinema

This is not the rating of the best, it’s my subjective list of Ukrainian actresses, who struck, forced to think over, look around, rethink, change something in my own life. This is my personal list of stars of Ukrainian Cinema Independence. Almost each of them faced the choice between a “fat” Russian film market, or its own, heavy, unvalued by the world and incomprehensible people, Ukrainian cinema. And they made their choice in favor of their independent Ukraine. They became my heroines. And I really want that in a few years all of them were known, recognized and appreciated all over the world – they deserve it! We deserve it!

Ada Rogovtseva

Once my friend shared her impression of a personal meeting with Ada Rogovtseva – “This is a woman, who charges with light, she shines herself and makes you shine. After a short conversation with her, I want to live – live a lot and with pleasure”.

This is the actress, for whose sake you can watch even the filming of a plenary session. If there is Mrs Ada, then there is no doubt that it will be something interesting, at least in those episodes where she is. For the past several years she has been constantly on the move, constantly shooting, constantly creating meetings with her, and her phrase “our boys” about the fighters of the ATO. Yes, Ada Rogovtseva is often seeing them, visiting, helping, supporting volunteers. For that, in 2015 she was charged with crime in Russia and she was declared persona non grata.

A film with her, for which I’m really looking forward – “11 children from Morshyn”. Because one can watch this woman forever in any role and at any age.

Nina Naboka

I cannot be objective here, I’m so in love with her that my soul grows stiff. Well, it happens so with me – I look at the screen and understand that I am just fainting from this person, my dear and that’s all. So it was with Nina Naboka, whom I saw in the film “Pryputni”. That woman, who was always looking for that eternal sickle, bothering her daughter, and oppressing clay dwarf, I was captivated very much. And when I met her personally, the first thing I asked was “Have you found a sickle?” And it began…

This person is the bearer of an insane number of stories, sayings, and tales. You can laugh and cry with her. Your wings grow beside her, and you want to do something good in your life. When I watched the broadcast of “Zolota Dzyga”, at the moment the award for the best supporting role was announced, and it went to Mrs Nina, I was so happy that I was applauded by the half of the district, the other half of the district called an ambulance.

From time to time I review “Pryputni” to fully enjoy the play of my two most beloved stars of Ukrainian cinema – Nina Naboka and Olena Uzlyuk.

Olena Uzlyuk

This is that woman… Lyudka with a gold tooth and a lilac lipstick in the film “Pryputni”. While watching the movie, I knew that several actors in the film are folk nuggets, non-professional actors. I thought then about Lyudka “Lord, where did they find her, in what market?”.

An incredibly charming lady came to meet me on a windy spring day, and she played that Lyudka. And this is probably the highest professionalism to transform this way. Olena knows how to be different, and in every way charming. And I want to see her further in the films – in love, cheerful, serious… different.

Rymma Zyubina

The best review of the movie “Nest of the Turtledove” with Rymma Zyubina I heard on the train. My road companion was Aunt Lyuda, she was returning from home, from Spain, went home to Vinnytsya. She talked and cried and laughed and it was hard to understand, where she was talking about the film and the character of Rymma Zyubina, and where about herself. Only when I got out of the train, I regretted that I hadn’t turned on the recorder. Although, the film “Nest of the Turtledove” shot even before the events on the Maidan, before the beginning of the war in the east, but I tend to call it the first film of independent Ukraine that is understandable for a viewer.

After “Nest of the Turtledove” Rymma Zyubina was shot in several Ukrainian films – “DZIDZIO Contrabass”, “Border”. In 2019, it was planned to start the distribution of the film “Let’s Dance”, where Mrs Rymma played the mother of one of the dancers, who was forced from Donbas to the “hated Bandera Kyiv” to earn money for the operation of his brother by dances.

Irma Vitovska

So it was… somewhere in 2002, the morning met me not very happily. This was the case when friends suddenly met, and yesterday, suddenly, there was a lot of wine, and in the morning I had to go to work. And here I am switching on the TV in the hangover of the working morning, and there the lovely Lesya says “Romchyk, Romchyk, look at that animal… What a bag she has…”, and Roma says, “This is not a bag, it’s a button accordion”. The hangover went away magically, I laughed all day. I’m talking now with my husband, also Roma, with quotes from the series “Lesya plus Roma”. And since then I consider Irma Vitovska – the beloved People’s Artist of the Ukrainian Cinema. I cannot think of any of her roles, that I would like to say “Why are you, darling, got into this?” For the sake of the performance with Irma, I almost broke my leg in one of the underpasses of Kyiv. She was the first star I cautiously asked to be friends on Facebook.

The film “The Gateway” was not loved by everyone. And that’s fine because it’s the kind of film that everyone should not immediately understand and like. It would be worse for the film to be showered with positive reviews at once. But this film is exactly the Ukrainian movie that I want to watch. And in the role of Granny Priska, a completely new Irma, completely different, and which finally won Lesya with her quotations.

I want to see different Irma Vitovska in various films, I want to see the roles in which she is elegant and beautiful, in which a mundane and casual, charming, beautiful, strange.

Vitalina Bibliv

Vitalina is like #MyMother, I look at her, and I see My Mother, like in a photograph that reflects the time when I was coming up, the same long braid, the same eyes, the same intonations in the conversation. When I dare so much to write the script of the movie #MyMother, then Vitalina and no one else must play it. I first saw her in the play “Illusions”, saw and froze – she was very clear and sincere and such that she was taking my soul with her own play and fingered it. She did this alternately with the character of Olesya Zhurakovska.

In the movie “The Gateway” Vitalina is different than in “Illusion”, but there she is like my neighbor in the village, when sometimes I want to come up and say, “How can you live so? Live like a human being!”, but in response will see the big eyes of a person, who simply cannot understand this world…

Dear Mrs Bibliv, if I ever dare so much to write the script of the film #MyMother, promise me to at least read it, or I will not survive it!

Olesya Zhurakovska

Olesya… even before the “Illusions” and before the first meeting with her, I looked at her characters on the television screen and thought that I could never have been so frank and so completely spontaneous. And it’s good that I have never even tried acting because I would always measure my achievements and my life and creative achievements in Zhurakovska. So – the book came out, it’s ¼ of Zhurakovska, a successful performance – ½ of Zhurakovska. I would never reach the whole Zhurakovska. Because it is a person of incredible energies – she has a whirlwind in every shot that, with a glance, with a word, with a move drags along.

Now Olesya has an active period in the cinema. In autumn, the film “Donbas” by Serhii Loznytsya is due to be released, Olesya Zhurakovska also played one of the roles. This year, she also starred in TV series, “Two Doves”, “Fortress” and “Plantains”. In the “Plantains” is collected my favourite company of Ukrainian cinema – Vyacheslav Dovzhenko, Irma Vitovska and Olesya Zhurakovska.

Dasha Plakhtii

Dasha is familiar to me so far only by the film “Falling”. And her image, her character and she herself left so many questions in me that I should look for all her interviews, read and recognize someone well-known to me… Myself.

Charming and incredible Dasha, she does not have a lot of filmographies, but I believe that for her – this is just the beginning and will be more new and new films, and the audience will fall in love with her characters.

Anastasiya Pustovit

The film of Marysya Nikityuk “When the trees fall” has not yet been released, but I heard about the star of this new film many times. Among the rumours were epithets – “absolutely cosmic”, “extraterrestrial”, “incredibly attractive”.

Those shots from the movie that you can find on the web are really mesmerizing. Anastasiya is surprisingly open there, that she is painful to be watched. Since September 13 “When the trees fall” will be released on the screens of cinemas, and I will definitely go on this film because I want to see the entire story of the character of the “cosmic”, “alien”, “magnetic” Anastasiya Pustovit and a little mystery girl who incredibly struck me – Sonya Khalaimova.

Sonya Khalaimova

This redhead sunny is 4 years old. She also plays one of the main roles in the film “When the trees fall”. And I understand that children do not play, children live, and in acting, children are usually moved to live in the proposed circumstances. And that is why children are more difficult to film. But Sonya, this little redhead sun is a love from the first shot. And I want to wish her a lot of opportunities and a lot of creative successes, I want to watch in the future some world-famous film with her in the title role and say, “I remember her still red little sun, in the movie “When the trees fall”.

P.S: This list is far from complete. A lot of names are worth talking about and writing about. But this story, the history of the formation of the Independent Ukrainian Cinema – is long. And we are only at the beginning. Watch Ukrainian, write Ukrainian, shoot Ukrainian… cinema of our memory, our will and our Independence.

Tatusya Bo