"My Life is Cinematography." Screening of the "Kamenyar" People's Studio Films

In 2024-2025, the Urban Media Archive of the Center for Urban History, in cooperation with the Lviv House of Culture of the Ukrainian Society of the Deaf, digitized 114 films from the "Kamenyar" People's Studio, which operated in Lviv since the mid-1960s under the leadership of Myroslav Maksymovych. The films made at this studio document the life and creative activities of the deaf community in Lviv, for whom film and visual media became an important tool of self-expression and self-representation.

During the event, we propose to watch some of the digitized films and discuss them together with members of the Ukrainian Society of the Deaf. The selected films reflect a wide variety of subjects, a desire for experimentation, a sense of humor, and the sensitivity of the filmmakers to the life of the community. The collection is also valuable because of the way it shows the city: on the films we will be able to see familiar locations, see shop windows and signs, look at trams and passers-by on the streets, and generally immerse ourselves in the everyday rhythm of Lviv in the 1960s and 1970s.

The screening will be interpreted from/into sign language.

The event will take place as part of the public program of the Center for Urban History [unarchiving].

Credits

Cover Image and gallery: collection of the People's Studio "Kamenyar" / Urban Media Archive of the Center for Urban History; gallery from the event by Maryana Mazurak