Filming for the episode “Executed Renaissance” of the documentary series “GULAG. Witnesses”.
Together with production designer Dmytro Khilchenko, we recreated the prison cell interior, capturing with actor Anatoliy Mateshko the moment of arrest of Ukrainian literary scholar and writer Anatoliy Kostenko, who miraculously survived the Kolyma camps.
The reconstruction is based on his authentic writings from a rare edition of the memoir “Does the Past Ever Pass?”:
“In prison, you can quickly see who’s who.
They bring in the newly arrested so-called ‘British spy’ Zhukovsky, who just yesterday was the head of the Southwestern Railway…
Among the senior party officials, I met only one true, fearless Bolshevik in Lukyanivska Prison — Stepan Varfolomiyovych Handzei.
Neither in the cell nor in the investigator’s office did he lose his dignity…
Two weeks later, once he recovered, they took him back in.
We never saw him again.
Rumor had it that he had been beaten to death, carried out wrapped in a blood-soaked sheet, and thrown into a prison van…”
We aim to convey not only the facts — but the breath of that era.
The camera does not just record — it gives voice back.
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