In the city of Kharkov, Ukraine, 10 volunteers representing 8 countries met for Dobre Razom 2 workcamp presented by SVIT Ukraine (www.svit-ukraine.org). This project was a sequel to Dobre Razom, a project which taught the negative effects of stereotypes and how to overcome them to school children in Lvov and Kharkov, Ukraine. The goal for this year’s project was much different yet very simple. With one professional camera, 10 active volunteers with the help of countless people from Kharkov would film material which would become a video to be shown all over Ukraine to reduce the level of racism and xenophobia. This was accomplished and more.
The workcamp started with 2 days devoted to the study of the topic of racism. The discussions mostly focused on the origins and escalation of racism and different faces that discrimination can take. After begin filled with knowledge that would later help with the creations of the documentary film, the volunteers partnered with a local film student who wrote a racism themed script. The volunteers needed filming experience and our local director needed actors. The volunteers committed four days to acting in this film and the director and cameraman shared their knowledge and experience on filming. The film has romance, comedy, love, hate, almost murder and a harmonica. Coming to an indie film festival near you.
After the first filming was completed, the project began to focus on the shooting of the documentary film. We discussed what we wanted to create, compared it with what we could accomplish, and agreed with the idea to ask 15 people 10 questions about living in Kharkov and recorded their responses. Africans, Asians, Europeans, South Americans, an American and Middle Easterners were interviewed. Some examples of the questions are, “Do you feel safe walking at night?, Do people stare at you on the street?, How does the police treat you?, Have you ever been physically attacked?”. The answers varied, with trends that correlated with the areas of the world from which the interviewees were from.
Workcamp is over, but there is still work to be done. The 10 hours of raw material recorded by volunteers must now be analyzed and turned into a documentary. This required obtaining funding and finding the right person to edit the film. The finished project will be shown schools, universities, NGO’s, and government institutions all over Ukraine.

By Brian Couzelis