Danube - Alpha and Omega
 

This project is just being prepared and is looking for funds for implementation. But here's the description and the plan.
The Danube is the Alpha and Omega of Europe, a river that flows across almost the entire continent, connecting all the contries like the blood system of Europe. The Danube flows through the territory of 10 states: Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. The river is full of myths, legends and is sung in many songs of the peoples of Europe. The river-border for many countries, not only physical but also metaphysical. It begins in Germany and ends in Ukraine. Like its waters, we want to start an expedition in Germany and end our journey in Ukraine, gathering information about the peoples living on its banks and their folklore about the Danube/ And with this material we want to tell Ukraine and the world about the commonality and diversity of these peoples,  about their myths, legends, songs and stories about the Danube. To Investigate whether there is a feature that unites all these countries in folklore. They all have the same river.   There are a lot of information about the Danube in internet, common information, discussions about its ecological problems about economic and political situation of its countries and tourism around it.  But there is no any film or book containing the Danube folklore. Politic and problems separate people but culture units them. So our project will build the bridge and multicultural dialog.  It will enrich the Ukrainian Song Fund, and world folk database, It will acquaint all people with the peoples living nearby.  Also it will grow the tolerance between people it will grow respect to different folks and cultures. It will show that we all are so different but so identical in the same time.
 

So in the end we are going to create a 10 - episode series (1 episode - 10 minutes). A team of professionals will travel for a month on an expedition in a pre-planned route and, according to the script, will shoot the material, then mount it within a month. The presenters, a boy and a girl, will meet with a representative of each settlement, a bearer of folklore about the Danube, listen to his songs, and try to sing their song together looking to the Danube.
We are going to premier it as part of the largest rock festival in Izmail (a city of the Danube) "Danube Sich" in June, also in the non-competition program of the International Ethnographic Film Festival "OKO" in September. Also we are going to show it in Sofia (Bulgaria) for students at the Center of Bessarabian Bulgarians, in the Ethnographic Museum, in the Embassies of all 10 countries in Bulgaria and on television there. Also it will be shown in all Ukrainian embassies in these 10 countries.  I would like to participate with this in some more Film festivals. In six months it can be posted on the Internet for the general public. In the future, it can be used in cross-border cooperation as a presentation of culture. In addition, we plan to donate the collected songs and videos to the photo-phono-video archive and to the Folklore Faculty as material for scientific research of students. Therefore, the work will be appreciated in scientific circles, and will remain with our descendants.