Andrew S Allen

Ukraine’s Got Talent is certainly an unlikely source for quality short films, but hang in there with me. We have brought you only a couple performance films thus far (Far West). And I must admit, it is a difficult genre for online short storytelling. Much is lost when viewing a performance through a 640 by 480 pixel window. But when done well, like this piece by  Kseniya Simonova, performance films can have a profound experience. Typically, I prefer to tell you up front what a short film is about, then talk about techniques, and lastly the filmmaker. But here, I think, in order to best understand this piece, the order must be reversed.

Kseniya was in a tough spot just 2 years ago. She was a 23 year old Ukraine artist who had to let her business go during the worst of the financial meltdown. It was time for her to take a risk—and that risk was an unusual one—sand animation. Now sand isn’t an entirely new medium for animation. Caroline Leaf pioneered the technique back in 1968 with Sand or Peter and the Wolf by manipulating scenes of sand backlit on a light box and shooting each step frame by frame in what must have been agonizing work—and certainly not a captivating performance.

But Kseniya has changed all that. Over the course of a few years, she developed a new technique of illustrating her scenes in realtime before a live audience—swiping sand this way and dragging her fingers that way to craft scenes that slowly emerge from one another. The beauty of the technique is in it’s simplicity. It follows what most historians will tell you is one of the oldest forms of visual storytelling. Many early cultures used sticks, stones, and even their hands—carving scenes and characters into the sand around them—bringing life to their spoken stories. And yet, the sheer popularity of this film (it’s hit 14 million views on YouTube!) could only come about in an age where modern technology makes it possible to broadcast that story to millions of people around the world.

The story in Kseniya’s untitled 8-minute masterpiece tells of the German conquest of Ukraine in the second world war. Kseniya builds peaceful scenes of parks and baby cribs only to bombard them with a flurry of sand in which she crafts faces of agony and despair. The message is clear even if the details aren’t, and the weight of war on the women and children who survive is felt by the audience.

Though Kseniya has proved she has talent (she took home first place on the show along with $125,000), it’s unclear as to where she will go next. As with other talent show winners, much of their performance is built on the uniqueness of the contestant’s talent and their ability to dodge our expectations (Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent). That sort of surprise makes for a great first viewing but is often difficult to sustain. Kseniya has a few other performances from the show on YouTube, however none seem to match the impact of the first. But who can say how her career will evolve. Perhaps in the face of another challenge, she will find a way to reinvent herself once again.