Could you introduce yourself please?
My name is Polina Piddubna (she/they), I am an animation director, artist and activist with Ukrainian and central Asian Tatar and Bashqort roots. Originally I am from Kharkiv, the city in eastern Ukraine. I have been living in Berlin since 5 and a half years. I will have a world premiere of my film “My grandmother is a skydiver” at Festival de Cannes soon.
What is your film about?
This is a multilayered film that focuses on many topics. In the main focus is the story of my family emerging into collective experience, and the story of my grandmother who worked as a midwife and did skydiving as a hobby. It is also reflects on my identity, rethinking generational trauma and aiming to decolonize.
Where did the idea for the film come from? What was your motivation to make it?
The first idea I got was in January 2022, when I got interested in the personality of my grandmother, and the feminist stories from the time when she was young. She lived in Tajikitsan, jumped by parachute, and did many other kinds of sports. She moved away at a very young age to study and later on she worked as a midwife.
After beginning of the full scale invasion of Ukraine the story got a deeper subtext. Then I realised that literally every generation of my family had suffered from wars, dispalacments and colonialism. For my grandmother this is the second war, the first one was the civil war in Tajikistan.
In the end I decided to make a film combining all these ideas and statements.
How was the experience of making a film on such a personal topic?
That was very interesting and at the same time hard. I got to re-explore the story of my maternal roots and make new conclusions about my identity. But at the same moment there were many triggers and old traumas which I had to experience.
Did you have to do research on your family history for this film? Have you learned something about past generations?
It took me one year to do research, and I was taking it very seriously and responsible. I conducted interviews with my grandmother and her relatives, travelled to Ukraine already in 2022 despite all the danger, Caucasus and Central Asia. In Tajikistan I went to the places where my grandmother worked and lived, trying to understand the life of Tatar communities in Central Asia by staying with my relatives. And of course I learned as much as possible about life of the past generations connecting it like a puzzle.
You said your grandmother is a progressive woman – how so? How do women’s issues come up in the film?
The parents of my grandmother, as well as their original cultural landscape in Bashqortostan/Ural and Central Asia have a very traditional Muslim background. My great grandfather married my great grandmother at a very young age, and so on. But my grandmother moved away when she was 14 to study in another county. In general her father sent all his children to get high education abroad. She did many sports including skydiving, completed her studies as a midwife and married in her 20s a person of her own choice. Understanding the context of that time for me it is very outstanding.
Has your grandmother seen the film? What was her response if so?
I was showing her the process of the production since the very beginning, and she can really recognise herself from the character. She is very proud and happy that the film is finally finished. I can’t wait to show it to her on the big screen in cinema once I am in Kharkiv, because she only saw it from the phone so far
There’s been quite a big reaction to your film, and it’s been selected for Cannes! How are you feeling about that?
I am really happy and excited that the film receives feedback and attention. I worked on this project for three years alongside with the big team, and we put a lot of love into this film.
What are you hoping to achieve with the film? What message do you hope people get from it?
The main goal is the film is to emerge into global solidarity, bring a cathartic experience; with a yet untold story of Bashqort Skydiver and a midwife in Tajikistan from 1960s and her granddaughter from 2022 Ukraine.
I want to make audiences aware and sensitive on the topic of Russian colonialism in these crucial times.
