Winner of the Envisions Competition, this subversive archival documentary depicts the subsequent effects of modern-day Russia on its youth.
With archival documentaries, the key elements can focus on lost footage, restoration efforts, and editing to form a narrative. To rewrite or write a new history from this footage can open up a new discourse that was taken over by history or the mainstream outlets. With the recent war on Ukraine by Russia, censorship has taken over with little to no reports on how the society inside is affected. With Angie Vinchito (a pseudonym by either a single or collective of filmmakers that must stay anonymous due to them still living in Russia), they have compiled footage from YouTube uploaded by young children to teenagers from Russia who vlog the mundane and quotidian since 2015 to 2022. What they have resulted in is a questionable, yet abrasive insight on the youth of Russia affected by the authoritarian leadership of Russia.
I am no expert in the Russia politics, so coming into this film knowing the very baseline of Russia’s invasion over Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s history (and having watched Adam Curtis’ Traumazone history), this film was devastating, transgressive, and borderline unethical, but effective in its use of presenting to the public or at least international film festival. I do believe that this kind of film is somewhat manipulative, but has to be, in order to accurately showcase the daily monstrosities on the pure souls. If a film like this is never made, will the footage ever be seen? Cause surely you would have to dive deep into the rabbit hole of the internet to find these videos.
Manifesto opens and closes with drifting clouds in a blue sky from below, where one, not in Russia, but almost globally can see/relate to. Young girls and boys open their front face cameras on their phones and describe their morning rituals from tiredly waking up to walking to school, without any sight of adults in their homes. They head to school in the blistering cold, while some document their days narrating the everyday, while some footage blasts an emergency nuclear siren, causing dismay in the children’s voices, thinking they’re going to die (one of the many and common events wreaking havoc on the society).
The film then transitions and moves along from this false alarm for nuclear war and goes on to the classroom, where other instances of violence and abuse take place by secrecy. Whether it be a sexual abuse via CCTV or teachers scolding and hitting students for misbehaving while students secretly record, the fear is seared into the children leaving a soulless mindset. But while the students misbehave and continue to retaliate, they know what is wrong from right and good from bad. They are in the middle of a devastating situation out of their control.
Other mechanisms to distill fear into the younger generation is told through propaganda. National news announcements stating to not fear of nuclear war as Russia has the most nuclear weapons and it would be foolish to go against them, or a teacher stating that woman should always abide to men in regards to sex. These forms of manipulation is constantly being shoved down citizens leaving a hopeless future.
But now the younger generation have social media and the internet to share and upload the reality of Russia unfiltered. By Angie collecting and editing this footage to stitch a linear narrative to the descent to hell, it opens eyes to what is really happening. For Russia to combat this publicness of social media, forced apologies are recorded in a hostage like situation. The ethics of releasing this footage without (I assume) contacting all the uploaders, can be troublesome, especially depicting school shootings, kidnappings, deaths, but while this nonsense of a war is continuing, shining light may reveal more transparency on what is already a fearmongering regime.
By the end, in a ten-to-fifteen-minute livestream, a teenage couple is fearful and rebelling against the special forces by shooting at their vehicle in front of their house. A tense and disturbing scene is in place while the couple is paranoid and hear the special forces arriving. They flip the phone down, while only audio is heard, and gun shots are blown. With the culmination of all the previous scenes of fear and aggression, this appears to be the most traumatizing of the film, leaving two young teenagers, almost human less, souls taken away, to be get to the point of no return. The film ends with all the credits to the YouTube video links, are their video count and upload date. These videos may still be online and will live on forever to document the temporal state of their lives and homes.
