Black Level / Riven chornoho

The 50th birthday became a turning point in the life of wedding photographer Kostia. Everything he loved and was attached to fades away forever. Though there weren’t many such things in his life to begin with: his paralyzed father, his lady friend—a stylist for a wedding magazine, an old cat, and photo slides that show him young and happy. Kostia has spent his life photographing the happiness of others, not giving much thought to his own.

Black Level is the third feature film by director Valentyn Vasianovych. Before this, Vasianovych was much better known as a documentarian and cinematographer. He worked as a cinematographer on an acclaimed Ukrainian film from the times of Independence by Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi, The Tribe.

In Slaboshpytskyi’s film, there were almost no spoken words, and the characters communicated exclusively through sign language. Vasianovych used a somewhat similar approach in his Black Level, where the characters also do not speak on camera. The film was made on the border between fiction and documentary cinema, funded by Vasianovych’s own money, and includes many personal moments for the director, who once worked as a photographer for glossy magazines.

However, this film can also be seen as the story of the actor playing the main role, Kostiantyn Mokhnach. His character is also named Kostiantyn, and his job, a house, a car, and some belongings actually belong to Mokhnach himself.

Black Level won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Odesa Film Festival. It was also shown at prestigious film festivals in Fribourg and Cottbus. In 2017, Black Level was submitted by Ukraine for the Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category, but it ultimately did not make the shortlist.