Ukrainian Sheriffs

Stara Zburyivka [uk] is a Ukrainian agricultural village in the hinterland of Kherson Oblast. It is located about 70 kilometres (43 mi) north of Crimea, at the south-eastern corner of the Dnieper–Bug estuary of the Black Sea, surrounded by wetlands and protected forests. In relative isolation, the villagers are used to doing things for themselves without government assistance. During filming the village had a population of approximately 1800, with different ethnic groups and once had a Zaporozhian Cossack settlement. The village has a mix of small but well-kept farmhouses and barns and dilapidated shacks with overgrown and neglected yards.

Until 2015, Ukraine had a single, nation-wide law-enforcement organization called the militsiya. The organization was founded during the Soviet era and it was directly involved in Soviet political repressions in Ukraine. The system changed little following independence, continuing to use Soviet-era procedures written in Moscow, with a reputation as the largest, most bureaucratic and corrupt police force in Europe. Bribes were required to gain employment or promotion, for many police interactions, and theft of property from crime scenes was common. The militsiya generally did not come to outlying villages like Staraya Zburivka, typically noting difficulty with transport.

Staraya Zburivka village council chairman (mayor) Viktor Marunyak had taken action to prevent land theft in the village and was arrested without evidence. Village residents rallied to defend him and secured his release. To prevent further conflicts with the militsiya and attend to the community's need for policing, Marunyak initiated the sheriffs program. Residents Victor Kryvoborodko and Volodya Rudkovsky were elected by their fellow villagers as public assistants to the militsiya precinct inspector, combining the roles of policemen and social workers, to de-escalate and settle conflicts before matters became criminal.

In 2015, following the Maidan Revolution, the militsiya was disbanded and replaced with the National Police of Ukraine. By September 2015, the Interior Ministry had officially launched its own Ukrainian Sheriffs program, replacing district militsiya officers with newly trained police officers, instructed to develop relationships with every family in the villages and small towns of their districts.

Sheriff Volodymyr Rudkovsky flinches from wood chips as he chops kindling for a small wood stove. He returns to an anteroom where his partner Sheriff Viktor Kryvoborodko receives a phone call with a report of a man threatening people with an axe. Without their coffee, they drive away in a yellow 1973 Lada sedan to investigate, but Kryvoborodko opens the window to finish his cigarette and the car's Ukrainian flag flies away.

They visit an elderly landlord who had sheltered a homeless man over the winter but the man later demanded money to leave the village. The two reportedly fought, resulting in property damage, and the landlord withholds the man's passport for repairs. The Sheriffs find a repairman and agree for the village to pay the expense, the documents are returned and the matter is quickly settled.

Other vagrants have decided to stay in the village and the sheriffs have attempted to settle them in abandoned, sometimes ramshackle buildings. The sheriffs explain that while not inherently bad, these people do drink and congregate in increasingly crowded and squalid conditions. An elderly woman's complaints against one such new neighbour include being perpetually drunk, operating a tavern and brothel, and putting an anaconda in her firewood shed.

The sheriffs check on Kolya and Vova, two petty criminals who are trying to turn their lives around, making sure that they are keeping out of trouble, that they can keep their phones charged, and helping with their probation documents. After cleaning garbage in a park, Kolya and Vova carry a log back to their home, so they'll have something to burn in cold weather.

Mayor Marunyak meets with Kolya who explains his ambitions to be respected and accepted, to have his own home, garden and family. He promises not to eat the neighbourhood dogs as he had in the past, believing it a preventative for tuberculosis. Marunyak later decides to transfer Kolya's deceased brother's house to him. Following the official transfer, Kolya begins tidying the overgrown yard of weeds and refuse while a neighbour loudly complains of an alcoholic wife-beating thief moving in.

A young man named Serhiy announces at a village council meeting his new group which seeks to form an independent community politically separated from Ukraine, issuing human passports and withholding taxes from the corrupt government. Serhiy espouses Russian World ideology and revisionist world history. Serhiy later addresses a gathering at the village club and is shouted down and ridiculed by the villagers, who stand behind the mayor. The mayor accuses him of trying to divide the villagers. He invites them to stand for election but leaves the meeting, tired of their antics.

Meanwhile, there are news reports of the Russian annexation of Crimea. A man with a paratrooper tattoo mans a precarious watchtower, listening to distant military transmissions on a small transistor radio. The War in Donbas begins and Serhiy is shown flying a powered paraglider around the watchtower, his purpose unstated.

The mood in the village changes with the seriousness of the war. The Sheriffs become less popular as they have to deliver registration notices for the military draft, which is met with some resistance. Rudkovsky is concerned that he might be on the draft list despite a shoulder injury. While many say that they will fight if the enemy comes from Crimea, most don't want to be sent to fight in Donbas and one man plans to emigrate to Germany. There is excitement when a military convoy passes through the village; Kryvoborodko has his young son Nikita pose for pictures in fatigues with an assault rifle. When the sheriffs deliver a draft notice to Serhiy's home, they discover that he has fled the village. They find the recipient of another draft notice dead in his home from apparent violence, and call the militsiya to begin a criminal investigation.

Kryvoborodko turns Kolya in to the police for stealing a bicycle and selling it to a junkyard, and Kolya receives a 3.5 year prison sentence. The sheriffs both have misgivings, Rudkovsky thinking they could have handled it themselves and Kryvoborodko acknowledging that prison never made anyone a better person. They're uncertain what should be done with Kolya's wife Tanya, who can only do simple tasks and may not be able to support herself. She reads a letter from Kolya and speaks to his better qualities.

After much preparation, the village holds its 9th of May victory celebrations. The mayor speaks of the new war with the new enemy, and the need for those drafted to serve in the military, as a half-dozen villagers have already done. Vova is seen wearing fatigues, suggesting that he has achieved an official position in public service.

• Viktor Vasylyovych Marunyak is the chairman of the Staraya Zburivka village council, referred to in some sources as its mayor. He is a former history teacher. Years after the filming, on 21 March 2022 during the Russian occupation of Kherson Oblast, he was taken prisoner by Russian special forces (Spetsnaz GRU), who destroyed his house and refused to bring his medication for a chronic illness. After 23 days of captivity, Marunyak was released with pneumonia and nine broken ribs, which he told the Associated Press were due to water torture and beatings. Marunyak was hospitalized for ten days before escaping to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
• Viktor Grygorovych Kryvoborodko is a village sheriff and pensioner. He aspired to a military career in the Soviet era then became a militsya officer until he retired to his home village due to health issues. The filmmakers state that he is 50 years old, though it is unclear when he is this age in the film's multi-year narrative. Shortly after the end of filming, he was elected a deputy of the village council.
• Volodymyr Rudkovsky is a village sheriff and former member of the militsya who was primarily occupied with guard duties. He later worked as a nightclub bouncer. Following the birth of his daughter, he settled into a family life in the village and raises pigs on a small plot of land. The filmmakers state that he is 44 years old, though it is unclear when he is this age in the film's multi-year narrative. Shortly after the end of filming, he was elected a deputy of the village council.
• Mykola "Kolya" Yanovskyy is an unemployed habitual petty criminal who performs community service in the village. He is unpopular due to his habits of eating the neighbourhood dogs and fermenting alcohol but aspires to be accepted and respected. In the film, he states that all of his cousins have been in prison and that his brother was sent to prison for the murder of their father.
• Serhiy Lazarevych is a pro-Russian separatist whose vocal advocacy threatens to divide the village. He calls for the villagers to create a "community of people" independent of any government and espouses Russian world ideology.

Sociologist Christina Jarymowycz found the film to have themes similar to that of the Maidan: distrust toward state institutions and a desire to take matters into one's own hands. Kryvoborodko and Rudkovsky contrast with cold and often corrupt bureaucrats. They act as a buffer, trying to resolve issues before involving the militsiya, and become an effective alternative to state structures that offer little empathy or reliability.

The film repeatedly returns to Kolya, described by film critic Neil Young as a "hapless, chaotic chap who seems to have wandered in from a previous century". Introduced as a vagrant and a drunken wife-beater, his character is gradually revealed in what Author Anna Yakutenko described as a character transformation "from a villain into a victim of unfortunate circumstances." Although Kolya is shown to apply himself and use his own strengths to better his living conditions, he is ultimately imprisoned. However, at the Victory Day celebration, Kolya's community service partner Vova is seen wearing fatigues, which Jarymowycz believes is an indication that he, at least, has redeemed himself in the community.

Another theme is the effect of the conflict on everyday life. As the villagers prepare for Victory Day, their memories of past wars become recontextualized in the building conflict.

Ukrainian Sheriffs was produced by Daryna Averchenko for DocuDays South (Ukraine) and co-produced by Uldis Cekulis for VFS Films (Latvia), Irena Taskovski for Taskovski Films (Germany), and Tania Georgieva for German television. Six European TV channels were involved in the production and the film also received support from the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) Bertha Fund (Eastern Europe). It was directed by filmmaker Roman Bondarchuk, who also served as cinematographer and co-editor. According to Averchenko, who was also the film's screenwriter, the film is a story about how people organized themselves to deal with a societal need – policing – without waiting for higher authority to provide instructions.

Most of the film was shot from summer 2013 to summer 2014, which covered the period of the Euromaidan Revolution, the annexation of Crimea, and the beginning of the War in Donbas. Bondarchuk stated that the villagers initially avoided the cameras but later competed for the film crew's attention. From the extended shoots, nearly 200 hours of footage covered the sheriffs' investigations, duties, and daily lives. This was initially edited into small episodes with a first cut that was five hours in length and remained over two hours in length until its sixth cut. A preliminary version of the film was workshopped and developed with the guidance of expert documentary creators at the IDFAcademy Summer School in 2014. With additional funding, the crew returned to the village in May 2015 to record reactions to Kolya's arrest and imprisonment and the 70th anniversary Victory Day celebration, which concludes the film. A rough cut of the film was then developed through the dok.incubator program in 2015.

A final cut of 88 minutes was assembled by Bondarchuk and co-editor Kateryna Gornostai, with sound by Borys Peter and original music by Anton Baibakov. A 52-minute edit was made for television. Dialogue is in Russian and Ukrainian.

The film premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), and was shown in special programs and in competition at more than three dozen other international film festivals. Its domestic premiere was at the DocuDays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival on 26 March 2016 when it was screened in seven Ukrainian cities: Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Lviv, Mariupol, Odessa and Kherson. Its Asian premiere was at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival (South Korea) in September 2016.

Ukrainian Sheriffs received distribution support from the IDFA Bertha Fund, and was released throughout Ukraine in July 2016, then to the Baltic and Balkan regions in September. The film's television premiere took place on 1 April 2016 on the Franco-German channel Arte.

Ukrainian film critic Sergey Trimbach [uk], writing for The Day, praised Ukrainian Sheriffs and described Marunyak, Kryvoborodko, and Rudkovsky as role models for Ukraine. He compared the latter two to popular archetypes of American police officers with their weathered masculine looks, confident strength and sense of humour. He concluded that the film is about taking initiative to better one's life rather than waiting on the outcome of disputes between greater powers Anna Yakutenko wrote for Kyiv Post that the film portrays rural lives "in a semi-comic way [yet] sincere and heartwarming" but felt that it did not go far enough into examining attitudes toward the war and that the ending was too abrupt. Neil Young, in The Hollywood Reporter, described Ukrainian Sheriffs as "an episodic, wryly amusing affair, displaying considerable interest in and sympathy with human foibles." Fionnuala Halligan, chief film critic at Screen Daily, also praised the film and predicted that it would do well at international film festivals, but found that the subtitles left parts of the story unclear.

Jarymowycz wrote that the film "artfully evokes both difficult truths and moments of hope in everyday lives of Ukrainians" but felt that its narrative simplified and idealized the village rather than challenging the audience with its rougher complexities.

Accolades

The film won the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam's (IDFA's) 2015 Special Jury Award. It also won the Mayor of Gdynia Award at the Docs Against Gravity Festival in Poland. The Ukrainian Association of Cinematographers (NSU) named Ukrainian Sheriffs the Best Ukrainian Non-Fiction Film of 2016 at the 2017 NSU awards ceremony [uk].

The NSU put Ukrainian Sheriffs on a shortlist of submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film category of the American 89th Academy Awards, along with The Nest of the Turtledove and Song of Songs. Ukrainian Sheriffs was later chosen as Ukraine's official submission for the category.

In 2021, Ukraine's National Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Centre compiled a list of the best 100 films in Ukrainian cinema [uk] through a survey of Ukrainian film critics, film experts and festival curators. Ukrainian Sheriffs ranked at position 56 on the list.

• List of submissions to the 89th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Ukrainian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

Notes

References

• Ukrainian Sheriffs at IMDb