紀錄片未命名 Unnamed Film (2008)

　　In 2006, experimental filmmaker Naomi Uman retraced her great grandparents’ emigration from Eastern Europe in reverse, settling in the tiny village of Legedzine, Ukraine, where she still lives today. The result of her ...展开adventures is the quietly picaresque quintet of 16mm films, The Ukrainian Time Machine. In capturing the joys and hardships of her neighbors’ centuries-old way of life– traditions that are eroding with the encroaching pressures of modernity–Uman creates a new kind of living history, fresh with curiosity and verve. In this evening’s program, Uman will present Unnamed Film, her keen documentary about life in Legedzine, cataloging its inhabitants’ various strategies of labor and resourcefulness necessary for survival.
　　Another kind of utopia is presented in the films of Naomi Uman, whose search for her family roots in the Ukraine led her to move to the small village of Legedzine. In Unnamed Film, she shoots the old bubushka ladies as they expertly prepare pickles, pick vegetables, and sing odes to vodka. Shot on 16mm with non-sync sound, it has an intimate, handmade quality, only heightened by the use of explanatory inter-titles in place of subtitles. Uman’s Ukrainain was weak, so she wanted the viewer to have the same experience as she did, just getting the gist of things. As with Uruphong’s work, there is a nostalgia for the old ways, which were self-sufficient but took an incredible toll on the body. The bubushkas complain about their aching backs and the never-ending poverty, spiking any drift towards romanticization.
　　This project is the result of the filmmaker's attempt to investigate issues of immigration by becoming an immigrant herself. Naomi Uman returned to the land her great grandparents left in 1906. She moved to Ukraine, without speaking the language or knowing anyone. She moved near the city of Uman, to a small rural village where people live as they did 100 years ago.