IFCO Member Profile

Name: Irina Lyubchenko
Films: Le néant hauté l`être, Milk, Tea, Untitled (Flour)

1. Why do you make films? When did you realize wanted to make films?
I have a background in photography and I have always been interested in creating spaces for the camera to photograph. At one point the scene in front of the camera started to involve temporal elements and I felt it was important to document this shift. That was the discovery of the medium of film for me.

2. What's your process of creation? Who's involved with it?
I usually have an idea that would be a highly defined still image in my imagination. I start from that and advance it further by making sketches and doing some research. The initial still image that I first imagined evolves into a moving one during this stage of development. When I feel I am ready to test it out I ask my friends Mark Macdonald and Virginia Bullock to assist me. They are my team.

3. When making films, do you think to adopt a certain style or common theme?
Yes, I do. My films have been rather experimental and abstract, involving the themes of adding or subtracting, revealing or hiding and of emotional overflowing expressed through material metaphors. The new film I have in mind will be inspired by the German Expressionist cinema.

4. Where do you look for inspiration?
In having a good time and being attentive to myself and surroundings. In trying new things and learning impractical skills.

5. What are the advantages/disadvantages of being a filmmaker in Ottawa?
Advantages: The community is very welcoming and IFCO stuff is amazing! Thank you guys for doing your job with so much expertise and joy!

Disadvantages: Not enough big film festivals in Ottawa that would feature experimental films as well. Or are there any?

6. What ultimately determines a good film in your opinion?
I believe a good film should provide a ground for an aesthetic and mental re-evaluation of norms prevalent in a viewer’s head.

7. What is your personal mission statement?
Mission is a scary word. I hope to be able to continue to make films that will be able to communicate ideas behind those films. Filmmaking is a much more complicated, time consuming and subtle way of talking to people and that’s what I want to do, to say that which couldn’t be said in words as successfully.