Month: April 2022

Work with reality

Helen Polishuk

Where to get reality?

A lot passes through the media of any information and people immediately take three positions – not mine, mine and what is nightime,terrible.

Three real human lines of thought.

All three are man’s ordinary response to reality.

And each of these answers is not reality itself. No. This is not reality, this is a system of response to events that has been formed within us.

Someone has this despair and then it forms that everything is lost, there is no way, we are all in the negative.

For some, this is optimism, and then there is a system of actions aimed at optimism or a solution and a search for a way out of the problem.

Someone has an absolute denial, not mine. This is not mine, and another and third. And in general, it’s not mine. Rejection. Not acceptance.

Why am I writing this today? A very relevant topic touched me as well as everyone who reads.

I am writing to show these three paths. To discuss each of them and show the effects of each of these paths on each person. It’s up to you to decide who makes what choice,think about it.

And I’m not writing here about my path. No. and do not advertise what is best or how to choose the best. No.

I describe and you act. So again I return to three different reactions to an event, or, as I explain it, to irritation.,think about it.

One person, after watching something on TV, runs to scream that everything is lost, that we are in the worst situation, that we are dying and everything is collapsing.

A person creates panic for himself, surrounding panic and suffers greatly from this. groups of alarmists. there are people who ease their insides by sowing panic among the people. These people live off optimists, at the expense of sedatives, these people kill themselves with panic and even have poor health from this with a thyroid gland, allergies, constipation, etc.

Others are complete optimists. No, now we will think more, come up with something and crawl out or get out of this situation.

This group of people try to get out of this situation, the lack of information throws them into various false turns, they get confused, they are on adrenaline, they often stumble upon people who do not understand them and fail, they see anger and even betrayal. They close up, stop trusting.
But again they optimistically rush to save the world, so they are laid down and born, there is not a drop of harmfulness, war and destruction inside them. A big heart, open eyes and a smile on the face even on the verge of death.

Of course, of these two opposites, there is a third one. These are those who, when they meet with you, are scoundrels.
Not something that is inserted into the TV, as there is an invented story.
Not my war on TV, because sitting on the couch I will not do better or worse, but only ruin my day and waste my nerves.
Not something that public opinion bothers me – it is always artificially created or creates my state and often leads to a dead end.

Three types of people’s reactions to events.
In general, these are three different types of people.
if throughout life, a person chooses only one of the three reactions and constantly repeats it, then his thinking, his way of acting, his character is formed.

That’s what I wanted to talk to you today and nothing else.

Easter is coming soon

Helen Polishuk

I wrote in previous posts that I like to celebrate Easter in Ukraine. It differs sharply in mood from celebrating it in other countries.
For those who do not know what Easter is, a short excursion into antiquity and history.

This majestic action is worth looking for even in pre-Christian times, when our ancestors celebrated the most important day of spring – Easter. Solemnly celebrating the victory of the spring season over the winter season, each family baked Easter cakes and dyed eggs, which later transformed into paska and krashenka, familiar to our ears.

Easter-a great day – and means the arrival of spring, the sun, all the best, the rebirth of nature. So, Great Day, in its fundamental principle, is the celebration of the resurrection of the earth and nature to a new life.

The word “Easter” comes from the name of the Old Testament holiday Pesach (from Hebrew – “transition”), which was celebrated by the Jews in memory of the liberation from Egyptian captivity. Therefore, for the Israelis, this holiday symbolizes the transition from slavery to freedom.

This is the transition from death to life, the liberation of us from the burden of sins, this is the transition of a person from the slavery of sin, evil to the freedom of love, goodness and associated with the person of Jesus Christ as the feast of the Resurrection of Christ.The date of Easter changes every year, but it is always calculated according to the same rule: it is the Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. According to the biblical scriptures, it was on this day that Jesus Christ resurrected after the execution.Today, the Easter holiday in Ukraine also symbolizes the general revival and renewal of the world. Indeed, in the memory of Ukrainians, many customs and rituals have been preserved, which are still carried out, but do not have a direct connection with Christianity.

It is impossible to imagine Ukrainian Easter without pysanky, whose unique ornaments and variety of colors fascinate the eye. Almost all peoples of the world revered the egg for a long time and became a symbol of life and birth, since it contains life as such.

All the symbols that were important for people in different periods and were considered amulets were written on the eggs: the sun, the moon, the stars, fire, water, earth, etc. Of course, in those days when people were just starting to make Easter eggs, they were not as perfect as they are today: they were elementary images of objects, phenomena, patterns, and over the years, painting Easter eggs has become an art.
In the Easter cycle of holidays, there are still Easter games, of which there are a huge number. During these games, young people built various towers, rode on a swing, danced round dances and rolled eggs. Some games were purely entertaining, others showed masculine strength and endurance, and most of the games had a courtship character. However, they all symbolized something in one way or another: for example, if someone managed to build a high tower, it meant that wheat would definitely give birth this year, it would be as tall as the tower. But by beating Easter eggs, people probably wanted to speed up the emergence of a new life, and young people measured who had a more beautiful and stronger Easter egg.


The last week before Easter called Holy Week and especially held every day.Tuesday clothes were chosen forcelebration of the holiday and cleaning og the house began,thought over whar dishes would be cooked and how much,prepared them.On Wednesday,a general cleaning of the house was started and continued on Thursday.On this day people bathed,washed and cooked Easter cakes and dyed eggs.Friday was called Good Friday,fasting was especially performed,a day with thoughts about God and the earthly sufferings of the son of God.
On Saturday evening,an all-night service began at which people took baskets of food .Sunday came with a prayer for coming of the holiday and families gathered at a common table/The fast ended.
Great Sunday symbolizes the cleansing of the soul and deliverance from sins.people celebrate it three days and the first day is dedicated to the family,the second to friends and the third to acquaintances.

Mimmis Adventures Interview

Helen Polishuk

https://intothewildfest.wixsite.com/home/mimmisadventure

First of all we would like you to introduce yourself so that we can introduce you to our audience. Who are you? How long have you been making films?

Over 15 years in film production, last 4 years filmmaking, scriptwriting and producing

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And now we talk about your project Mimmis Adventures. What the audience will find?

I wanted to create a film through the eyes of a small clumsy dog. Exactly a comedy , becouse to show the world  how it seen  dog, animal perception of the surroundings of the city and nature.

Mimmi is 1.5 kg mini chihwahwa  and absolutely not trained for filming. I had to adapt to him. He is afraid of street filming and therefore trembling ears are often visible.
IBy shooting in different locations, the film turned out to be rich and  I have reached my goal to show the beauty of nature.

A special place is given to Mimmi in nature, where he smells flowers and grass, where bees fly and the sun shines.

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Were you inspired by any other movie to make Mimmis Adventures?

Absolutely my idea.
If you see this little mischievous dog, the first thing you will do is smile.
That’s why when he appeared, I created the film with a smile.
And this is just the beginning. There is already a continuation. Not yet mounted ,videos already in the files. I would like to complicate the topic and add more adventures.

Mimmi -best actor

And now we would like to know about your cinematographic preferences:

I came to the cinema already as an artist, therefore the image is important for me. I constantly fill my eye by creating video filming.
I like editing shots to create the images you see onscreen,  creates shot lists, floor plans, and lighting diagrams

I study  techniques and try different cameras, study cinematic elements such as lenses, filters, lights, and other camera/lighting requirements.

I have my own three cameras and they are different. I continue to draw

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What does cinema mean to you?

This is my life. I came to the cinema in love with work and gradually improved. Now a lot is behind me and I understand. It’s difficult to achieve everything at once.

Apparently I am one of the difficult creators. Shooting a couple of scenes, dialogues, saturating them with special effects is too easy for me. Creating a very vivid script and implementing it in a film is my goal before starting a film.

Therefore, science fiction  and horror remains one of the main  genres for me because it is necessary to realize the meaning of the script in the frame

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Which movie is the best for you?

Metropolis by Fritz Lang  and now DUNE by Denis Villeneuve .

I think it’s the best movie in recent years.

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What do you think a movie must have as an essential ingredient?

The main thing is an excellent SCRIPT.

Thoughtful, calculated and laid back a little to remove the excess.

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Your favorite actor or actress?

The most difficult question of all.

I will try to answer. I am a technician. I approach the work technically.
It’s hard for me to name someone I love more than another.
When I watch films, and I do it almost regularly, I see the performance of actors and somewhere better, somewhere weaker. But there are no privileges and preferences.


After all, I am a small segment of a large machine. Success with us is not always possible to predict.
And you will agree that in some genre some actors are more successful, while in others they lose.


By the way, I run Instagram (@astra_production) where I share my opinion about the movie I watched and even try to determine  during past years who will win the Oscar. There is a Sunday contest for knowing the name of the movie. I share videos where I show bts of movies.

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What qualities do you see in that actor/actress to have such consideration. What do you like most about them?

I am very picky about projects.
On the site, sometimes you have to adapt. I will give an example.
In one films, the main actress was a lthree-year-old girl. Her parents forbade her to use a mobile phone.
Her shooting lasted a long time, she kept the text, was calm and easily recorded, but there was no fire, no spark was felt. I came up with a scene that she was holding a mobile phone and photographing a drawing that she sent to her grandmother.
The girl immediately came to life, I told how to use a mobile phone. In the frame, she herself took a picture. How much joy she had and this is the first time in her life.
This happens.

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A good movie has to…

Everything worked out perfectly – make-up, lighting, screenwriter, director, cameraman and producer with advertising.

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What genre of cinema do you prefer?

Ski fi/triller/adventures/historical/horror/action

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How do you define yourself professionally?

I love my job and am always learning and trying new things.

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What movie have you seen most often?

Only one?  The last script I did was  a historical triller. At the end the producer decided that it was necessary to add a spy movie and I had to watch a lot of spy movies to put together an image.
I can’t remember any one that I look at more than others.

What topics are the most inspiring for you?

My last work is historical triller

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What helps you to be more creative? Do you have a writing routine?

Yes, I like to stop myself and somewhere in the notes to write down some statements, thoughts, or if something has affected me in the news, then study it in detail.

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When you write a script, are you clear about how it will end or are you building it?

Short films  are based on ideas and are easy to anticipate without construction.
But with the film 130 minutes +   you have to build. After all, there is a line of a hero or several, plus climaxes and denouement. And this must be built

Thank you for the interview. It is very full and interesting.Thank you very much for your attention and see you again.
I want to note that for me the theme of nature is very relevant and free time, time of relaxation and rest, I actively devote to going out into nature, traveling,hiking.

This interview was given for the Spanish festival Into the wild Film Festival Castelló d’empúries, Girona 17486
Spain april 7,2022

When I write my Pysanka

Helen Polishuk

Fasting has come in February and this time is special, because in fasting you often think about life and the eternal.
This is the time when you realize that I have been given a little time for life and this time between some year and some other. This time will remain on the stone with two dates engraved in memory about me and my life.
And realizing this, you humbly accept earthly life.
Even during fasting, you clean up a lot, get ready for spring, warmth and a new energy time. Therefore, you wash the house, sort out the rubble of things, hide New Year’s utensils. The snow this year was so long that at the end of March I pulled out Christmas attributes and courtyards from the still frozen ground, cleaned and folded until next year.
In fasting, you are preparing for Easter. And this is not only pies and Easter cakes. This is Easter eggs.

The symbols which decorated pysanky underwent a process of adaptation over time. In pre-Christian times these symbols imbued an egg with magical powers to ward off evil spirits, banish winter, guarantee a good harvest and bring a person good luck. After 988, when Christianity became the state religion of Ukraine, the interpretation of many of the symbols began to change, and the pagan motifs were reinterpreted in a Christian light.

A pysanka is a Polish-Ukrainian Easter egg, decorated with traditional folk designs using a wax-resist method.

Pysanky are so varied in style that it is difficult to list them all. They are divided by origin – there are Ukrainian, Polish, and Tripilsky. Pysanky are divided into regions – Hutsulsik, Podolsk, Lemkivsky.
They differ in patterns – there are patterns, there are images, there are flowers or geometric shapes.
But recently they even began to decorate them with decorative ornaments, pieces of fabric, beads and fabric.
They also differ in the methods of creation – drapanka, kraska, pysanka and krapanka.
I use a method known in ancient times – waxing.

Easter eggs in a basket close-up. Symbol of Christian holidays.

What do the colors of Easter eggs mean?

The red color symbolizes the color of the blood shed at one time by Jesus Christ.
Black color is compared with sadness, crying and death, followed by the birth of a new life.
Yellow symbolizes prosperity in the harvest and wealth, but also this color represents the sign of the sun and fate.
Blue conveys warm feelings for a neighbor, wishing him health and strength.
Green - symbolizes the rebirth of all living things and recovery after a serious illness.
White color implies a heavenly cleansing, symbolizing a new life that is emerging in heaven.
Brown represents the fertility and great power of the earth.
It is best to color them with food coloring: using onion peel, turmeric, spinach, red cabbage, and you can also use cherry juice. There are also ready-made food colorings in the form of powders or tablets.

I am use stylus input wax in.A piece of wax is placed in the stylus and melted over a fire. Wax cools very quickly, there is no time to think, you need to write with wax very quickly.

You apply a pre-selected drawing on the egg with a stylus in which the wax melts, wait a moment and then lower it into a jar of prepared paint.
So you repeat several times – if there are several colors. Then you put the egg over the fire and quickly wipe the vox from the egg – an ornament remains on it.

Pysanka, unlike krashenka, is by all means a raw egg. Easter eggs were intended only for donation.

Pysanka is a talisman

In the old days, it was believed that only the primordial eggs of young hens, laid in March, on the first spring new moon, are suitable for making Easter eggs. Also needed were pure beeswax, pure water, live fire, new wax brushes, new napkins, new clay pots, and a potion (herbs and trees) to extract the colors.

This is Bukovinian style Pysanka

WhenI write my Pysanka,each line is ,,I hope,, and ,,I wish,, and ,,I thought,, and ,,I pray,, my Pysanka for Peace

After February 24 2022

Helen Polishuk

I had everything.

Everything is at my fingertips – my life, the future of my children, my plans and my dreams.

I made plans to move to live in the forest Bucha near Kyiv, where my friend invited me, my children often talked about the same plan, I sat quietly on Klovsky Spusk this summer on the balcony of a French cavern and drank expensive coffee and watched the passers-by, the rebuilt Kiev life.
Then it seemed to me that only the air had not changed – it was compressed and stuffy on a hot day. And the sparrows had not changed.

In general, all the birds are there, in Kiev. They are of the same sizes, always hungry, always watching us from above.
Cappuccino, different types of coffee, hot chocolate – you can choose four or five types. Paris probably does not know this.

Huge tables with food and large groups of friends talking animatedly. I still dual: how good it is for them.
There were so many posters, so many exhibitions and events that in the evening the eyes ran wide : where to go, what to do, what to see. Preferences were given to especially interesting events.

Returning to a rented apartment, trying as much as possible to walk on foot … taking off swollen, buzzing legs, stagnating in silence, absolute silence and the phrase – if only it didn’t disappear anywhere, didn’t change, preserved, remained intact…..

We underestimated these moments.
We did not hug our loved ones.
We didn’t meet especially dear people, we didn’t talk about the most painful with friends, we didn’t pet the dog, we didn’t put on the most beautiful dress, we didn’t open the door …

My life was often changed. Losing everything, I started from the beginning, confident in myself, in my abilities, in overcoming difficulties.

I often left, left … but then returned.

All this was before February 2022, until February 24, 2022

I always believed that life would torment a good person, but then leave him, let him live, end the test and let him go. This is definitely what happens.

It will test, torment, incinerate and weaken, but then leave. You just need to remain human. Difficult, difficult, but necessary.

All this was before February 2022, until February 24, 2022

My faith is also higher than the betrayals and betrayals that are and will be. But seeing this, I did not prove anything to anyone, did not correct or quarrel, I learned to silently go my own way.

We will have everything
So I began to think after February 2022, after February 24, 2022.


Yes, it will. We’ll just take everything away and return it and earn money and build it. For this we live, for this now young guys, men and old people in Ukraine have taken up arms to defend and protect us, our children.
How painful it is now to hear, watch and receive news about the death of one of the acquaintances, about the mutilated shot people of Kramatorsk, who died under the rubble in Borodyanka, and were tortured to death on Yabunevskaya Street in Bucha.
I want silence.
Everything will be different.
It will be. The main thing is to understand that only when it all turns into memories will everything be different.

No, not in February after 24….

I am writing this post as if I am talking to you. I know that the one who reads this post has already read my first posts, which are already more than 5 years old and were the very first steps into the world of meeting you.

I know how much you loved my ellipses – a special style and ellipses.

Today is my first day after February 24, 2022, when I calmly wear a computer and write a post.
behind a lot of work, tomorrow again a new week, volunteering, working with the editing of films and clips, maybe even a return to the pictures.
I remember one thing – when I collect boxes of humanitarian cargo for Ukraine, working with my hands, closing them, transferring them to my hand, I feel a special warmth. Where does so much strength come from?
Remember everything as clearly as possible

Very cold spring this year

Spring after February 24, 2022

February 2022

Helen Polishuk

It was the end of February 2022. The month was coming to an end. I rustled several robots in a row: selection of films for my project on the topic of thriller, historical film, spy thriller.

I looked at the finalist films of the annual Oscar to analyze the best works, which films are now in privilege, what are the trends of recent years. Over the past few years, I have regularly done such analytical reviews. It helps me a lot and I recommend such trainings to directors and producers who want to understand the world of cinema and see the latest changes.

By the way, I post notes on my Instagram and those who are reading this post now will easily find me on Instagram @astra_production

The weather was getting better and I thought with pleasure about those days when all the barriers would be removed and I would go to a fitness club with my body that had become obese for two years.
The temptation pushed me, I planned the workouts ..

Finally, hands will reach the editing of two films to send to the festival.

I read the news, but did not pay attention to any details or changes.
Night of February 23. I open Facebook, as I browse for the night. One of the actresses from Kyiv writes: It has begun…started….
I didn’t understand what. I looked at the comments under her post, people began to unsubscribe to her that they heard explosions and the sound of sirens over Kiev.
Kyiv? The noise of sirens? Is it really … War?
This is the most incredible thing that could come to mind.
Can not be.
I quickly skimmed through the news bulletin. Yes, martial law.
The Russian army invaded the territory of Ukraine and immediately began to attack and launch rocket attacks on all territory, including Kyiv.
Life.Time.Fat point.No comments.

This is where the new vision,new life starts.
A new world. A new reality, which is difficult to believe in, in which one must live. Get used to? No, the brain refuses to get used to. It is taught to exist in the world, seeks balance, is not capable of destruction and perceives such changes hard

Trembling. The whole body was trembling.
I didn’t sleep that night.
I started writing to friends and acquaintances.
They answered me. I asked them again, hoping that this was a mistake.
No. It turned out to be a reality.
My beloved friends who have always supported me are now in great trouble and danger.
I did not fall asleep until the morning, texting with friends, following the news and watching videos that were published by news channels about the first strikes and destruction in the capital of Ukraine.

after a sleepless night with sleepy eyes, with trembling in my body, I went out into the city in the morning.
Like any person living in another hemisphere, in a completely different world, in a Canadian city of millions, reality cut me.
Two realities – the reality of hell, deaths and refugees, the destruction of cities and the danger of movement in Ukraine.
And children peacefully playing with their parents on the playground, young people hurrying to work, people sitting at the bus stop waiting for the bus.

The world has collapsed and there is no past.
The world is divided into before and after.

February 24,2022