Director Polly Creed interviews Tetyana Filevska and Karina Sabri

The Finborough Theatre’s new digital initiative #FinboroughFrontier #VoicesFromUkraine continues with director Polly Creed interviewing Tetyana Filevska and Karina Sabri.

Tetyana Filevska is a Ukrainian cultural manager, curator and art historian. Her work focuses on 20th century Ukrainian avant-garde art with a particular specialism on Kazimir Malevich.  She is creative director of the Ukrainian Institute and she is also the co-founder and former director of the Malevich Institute NGO. She is founder of numerous lecture cycles, conferences and events and is the author of three books on art history. Visit the Ukrainian Institute website here.

Karina Sabri is a Ukrainian photographer now based in London. She is currently completing a PhD in political science from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, where she has conducted research exploring the use of hybrid warfare against Ukraine over the past eight years. This interview is a dialogue between Karina and Polly Creed, the director of Pussycat in Memory of Darkness by Neda Nezhdana. The play, translated by John Farndon, tells the true story of Irina Dovgan who was kidnapped by pro-Russian insurgents and dramatises many of the events in the Donbas in 2014, which Karina has written about.

Polly Creed directed the UK premiere of Pussycat in Memory of Darkness, currently playing at the Finborough Theatre. She is a theatre director, playwright, and filmmaker. She also recently directed The Straw Chair at the Finborough Theatre. Polly is a founder of Power Play, a production company that tells women’s stories of injustice on stage and on screen. Power Play’s debut site-specific showcase at the Edinburgh Fringe 2018 won a Fringe First for Emma Dennis-Edwards’ play, Funeral Flowers. Polly’s directorial debut, Next Time received an ‘Outstanding Show’ accolade at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Polly is also writer of Humane, shortlisted for the Charlie Hartill Award and published by Aurora Metro Books. It has also been adapted into an audio drama. The play version will have a stage run at The Pleasance in November 2021. Her play, The Empty Chair, was shortlisted for a Sit Up Award and won Best New Writing at LSDF 2018.  In 2016-2020, she ran a successful petition and media campaign, calling for Harvey Weinstein to be stripped of his honorary CBE.

Available FREE TO VIEW on the Finborough Theatre YouTube channel #FinboroughFrontier here.

All videos are free to view but we do ask for donations for
Voices of Children Foundation 
Come Back Alive Foundation
Serhiy Prytula Foundation

Available from Thursday, 1 September at 9.00am

#FINBOROUGHFRONTIER
During lockdown, our acclaimed #FinboroughForFree series released monthly free-to-view archive recordings and original online content including new plays, rediscoveries, a community festival, and the Finborough Forum, our invitation-only group for theatre creatives. Our online work saw us awarded London Pub Theatres’ Award for Pub Theatre of the Year 2020, and our web series Late Night Staring At High Res Pixels won London Pub Theatres Standing Ovation Award for Best Online Theatre 2021.
We strongly believe that online work is an exciting new complement to our work, and are anxious to explore this new medium, embracing anything that can be presented digitally including film, livestream, audio, and hybrid. We are especially keen to develop digital work to increase our international engagement, and also to ensure that our work is truly available for everyone, especially those who cannot easily access our auditorium.
Since January 2022, we have continued our online work under a brand new name – #FinboroughFrontier, curated by Artistic Director Neil McPherson and Playwright-in-Residence Athena Stevens. All our online content will remain – as it was throughout lockdown – entirely free to view, and also be available in a subtitled version. Our first releases, earlier this year, were An Earls Court Miscellany, a celebration of the vivid history and personalities of Earl’s Court featuring poetry, prose and music, and filmed in the local area, and How To Make A Revolution by Einat Weizman with Issa Amro, a verbatim documentary play filmed in the UK and Hebron.

#VoicesFromUkraine #Українськіголоси #Ukrayinsʹkiholosy
Previous releases in the #VoicesFromUkraine #Українськіголоси #Ukrayinsʹkiholosy include Otvetka by Neda Nezhdana, The Peed-Upon Armored Personnel Carrier by Oksana Gritsenko, A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War by Yelena Astasyeva, accompanied by poems by Tatiana Voltskaya, a Russian poet condemning her country’s war against Ukraine, all are now available on the Finborough Theatre YouTube channel, and available with subtitles on Scenesaver.
Live productions include Two Ukrainian Plays featuring Natal’ya Vorozhbit’s Take The Rubbish Out, Sasha in a double bill with Neda Nezhdana’s monologue Pussycat in Memory of Darkness, pairing Ukraine’s leading contemporary playwright together with a Ukrainian playwright making her UK debut, playing at the Finborough Theatre until 3 September 2022.