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Tango during the war

Tango During the War is a musical dance film set during the war in Ukraine in 2024. It tells a story of love and loss, revisiting themes of genocide and the value of human life in the 21st century, inspired by the Holocaust during World War II.

  • Olena Hruzdieva
    Director
    From Splinters
  • Olene Hruzdieva
    Writer
    From Splinters
  • Dmytro Nikolaienko
    Key Cast
    "soloist"
  • Olena Hruzdieva
    Key Cast
    "soloist"
  • Zoltan Almashi
    Key Cast
    "cellist "
  • Daria Solodova
    videographer
  • Daria Solodova
    editing director
  • Zoltan Almashi
    composer
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Music Video, Other
  • Runtime:
    8 minutes 53 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    October 16, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    500 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Ukraine
  • Country of Filming:
    Ukraine
  • Language:
    German
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Olena Hruzdieva

Olena Hruzdieva is a Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalyst. She is a member of the World Organization of Problem Symbolic Approach (WOPSA). In addition to private practice, Olena is an author of numerous psychoanalytical texts on culture and art, stories, essays, and scripts, as well as a participant in international theatrical projects. Her latest book Die, bichon! (2021) is a compilation of essays about the female subject analyzed through theater and cinema. Director of the film «From Splinters», 2022.

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Director Statement

The Tango During the War project is a short music and dance film created in 2024 in Kyiv during Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. It stands as an independent artistic statement, while also serving as a logical continuation of the From Splinters project (2022) — a short film and photo project showcased at various international festivals throughout 2022-2023, as well as in Ukraine.

The film Tango During the War merges a three-part choreographic piece for two performers with 20th-century poetry (Paul Celan’s “Death Fugue,” recited by the author) and contemporary Ukrainian academic music. One of the leading roles is performed by distinguished Ukrainian musician and composer Zoltan Almashi, who plays his own work on the cello.

Tango During the War is an artistic reflection from within the war’s daily reality on the events unfolding in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion. Often, work on the project took place in a dance studio without electricity — reflecting the situation across the country — or even in a bomb shelter during air raid alerts. This truly is a dance for two in the presence of a direct threat of death, where the incongruity of the moment is intensely felt: here and now, there are feelings of love and tenderness in music and dance, while outside the studio, war, pain, and death prevail. This life in wartime is lived within each person.

Our project reveals this internal fracture and also attempts to grapple with it — a process of gathering the self “from splinters,” as with our previous projects.