Draft:Some Kind of Liberating Effect (Documentary)

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Some Kind of Liberating Effect
Directed byValerio Severino
Screenplay byValerio Severino
Produced byEuropean Commission, MSCA, CROSS
CinematographyPéter Deák
Edited byMiklós Horváth
Music byMichael Vignola
Marco Martini
Production
company
Cabbage Film Factory Black Media Production
Release date
30 September 2023
CountryCzech Republic
LanguageEnglish
Budget19.000 €

Some Kind of Liberating Effect is a 2023 docufiction directed by Valerio Severino and produced as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action project of the European Commission[1]. The documentary investigates the freedom to study religion in post-communist countries, three decades after the fall of Marxist-Leninist scientific atheism[2] [3].

Plot

The film intertwines interviews with 20 scholars of religion, from 8 countries in Central and Eastern Europe[4], with fictional footage loosely adapting Andersen’s "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" fairy tale,[5] [6] filmed following the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine[7].

A frame story is built around a fabricated interview with a hypothetical Hungarian scholar of religion, featuring the actress Kata Sarbó[8] as Johanna Katona. This interview then develops into a narrative about the day of its filming. The name itself is symbolic: "Katona" means "soldier" in Hungarian, referencing the tale’s titular character, while "Johanna" evokes the author’s first name, Hans.[9]

Production

The film project was initiated in August 2020, while the pre-production phase started in October 2021. The first interviews were conducted eight months after the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Filming took place between October 2022 and May 2023, involving scholars of religion from fifteen universities across twelve cities: Budapest, Szeged, Prague, Olomouc, Kraków, Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga, Tartu, Bucharest, Chernivtsi, and Tuscaloosa (Alabama, USA). The production required 15 shooting sets and the deployment of 12 film crews.[7]

The documentary was filmed at several academic institutions, including: The Institute for the History of Religions in Bucharest (Romania); The Hungarian Academy of Sciences - TABT in Szeged (Hungary); Palacký University Arts Centre - Theatre Hall in Olomouc (Czechia); Chernivtsi National University (Ukraine); The Main Library and the Conference Hall of the University of Tartu Library (Estonia); The Staszic Palace – Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (Poland); The University of Alabama, Department of Religious Studies in Tuscaloosa (Alabama, USA)[7].

Originally planned in September 2021 to include Russia, the film project's scope was significantly altered. The ensuing EU sanctions and embargo against Russia started in 2022 impacted all EU-funded projects and compelled the project to exclude Russian scholars from the documentary.[10][11]

The European Commission funded the documentary through the MSCA program, under Grant Agreement ID: 101032467 for the project CROSS (Science Communication for Religious Studies) hosted by Palacký University in Olomouc (Czechia).[1]

Reception

"Some Kind of Liberating Effect" is noted as the first documentary of its kind focusing on the Academic Religious Studies.[12] [13][14][15]

Cast

Featured Scholars:

References

  1. ^ a b "Science Communication for Religious Studies: Creating a New Researcher Profile by Laying the Foundation of a Laboratory. A Film Documentary Project Located in Central and Eastern Europe". Cordis | European Commission. Retrieved 28 December 2024.
  2. ^ Ferencz, Attila Norbert (21 February 2024). "Freedom of Research and Religious Freedom". Hungarian Conservative. ISSN 2732-3161.
  3. ^ "Szabad kutatás és vallásszabadság". Magyar Demokrata. 8 February 2024. ISSN 1417-6432.
  4. ^ Severino, Valerio (2024). "Behind the Scenes of "Some Kind of Liberating Effect", a Documentary about Research Freedoms in the Sphere of Religious Studies in Post-Soviet Europe" (PDF). Religio: revue pro religionistiku. 32 (1): 187–188. doi:10.5817/Rel2024-37976.
  5. ^ Severino, Valerio (2024). "Screenwriting Applied to the Academic Study of Religion: Some Kind of Liberating Effect, a Documentary on Central and Eastern Europe". Numen: International Review for the History of Religions. 71 (5–6): 606–608. doi:10.1163/15685276-20240019.
  6. ^ Suszta, Laura (2024). "Some Kind of Liberating Effect – Religion in Central and Eastern Europe Today" (PDF). Vallástudományi Szemle. 20 (1): 259. ISSN 1786-4062. a frame story rich with fairy-tale metaphors.
  7. ^ a b c Severino, Behind the Scenes (2024), p. 188.
  8. ^ "Kata Sarbó | Actress, Additional Crew, Writer". IMDb. Retrieved 2025-01-11.
  9. ^ Severino, Screenwriting (2024), p. 607.
  10. ^ Severino, Behind the Scenes (2024), pp. 193-196 (§. The Russian Issue in the Context of the Invasion of Ukraine).
  11. ^ Severino, Valerio (2023). Richard, Richard (ed.). "Some Kind of Liberating Effect. Interview". Bulletin for the Study of Religion. 52 (4): 148–152 (question n. 8). doi:10.1558/bsor.28269.
  12. ^ Dumbravă, Daniela (11 November 2023). "Suntem liberi să studiem astăzi religia în Europa Centrală și de Est? Interviu cu istoricul religiilor Valerio Severino". contributors.ro. For the first time in Europe, at least, twenty scholars are answering in a documentary devoted entirely to the academic study of religion.
  13. ^ "Czy w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej możemy dziś swobodnie studiować religię? – film dokumentalny". ifispan.pl (Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii PAN). To pierwszy w historii film dokumentalny poświęcony akademickim studiom nad religią.
  14. ^ "The new FILM - first ever documentary on the academic study of religion". Anna Lindh Foundation (ALF).
  15. ^ "Some Kind of Liberating Effect". aisseco.org (Associazione Italiana Studi di Storia dell’Europa Centrale e Orientale). 24 October 2023.
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