Article by Emidio Sciamanna

Translation by Vittorio Cavalli

The Kyiv of 1968, depicted by Stanislav Gurenko and Andrii Alf’erov in Dissident, is not a vibrant urban symphony like the avant-garde Berlin of Walter Ruttmann, but a grey, oppressive sprawl of streets and buildings constantly hit by a violent and unrelenting rain, a ghost of the Soviet Union that looms, heavy and suffocating, over the shoulders of the Ukrainian population. In the dissonant flow of a city in motion, the dreams, anxieties, and illusions of individuals abandoned to their fate intertwine, tormented by solitude and in perpetual conflict between a peaceful struggle for independence and a burning desire for rebellion.