Mykola Ridnyi

Temerari

12 August–2 September 2023

On Solidarity
Films in Times of War
April - September 2023
Kunst im Traklhaus showroom

On Solidarity is a curated film programme that explores films by Ukrainian artists in times of war and violence.

12 August – 2 September 2023
Mykola Ridnyi, Temerari (2021), 21 Min.

A nationalist ideology drives Russia’s attack on its neighbour. Russian propaganda justifies its invasion as one aimed against “fascists” who have supposedly taken over Ukrainian politics and sit at the helm of NATO today. Mykola Ridniy’s film Temerari, made before Russia’s full-fledged invasion, tackles this incredibly controversial subject. In a post-internet travelogue, Ridniy revisits Italian Futurism's militarist, accelerationist aesthetic through cinematic documents. He looks at its daredevil misogyny and its embrace of purifying violence and shows how those aesthetics recur in the present. Ridniy’s film deftly navigates the ideological complexities of this topic while showing, on the one hand, how cultural history normalises