EVENT TIMING

11 am — IRL Doors at UNDO

11:30am — Screening begins

(in-person & online)

1pm — CineClub Conversation

(in-person & online)

LOCATIONS

IRL @ UNIONDOCS
352 ONDERDONK AVE
RIDGEWOOD, NY

ONLINE – 11:30AM

Artistic Differences, produced by UnionDocs and hosted by Cíntia Gil, is our cineclub that gathers online and in-person on the first Saturday of every month! Each month, we invite you to watch a film that demands deeper discussion. Think Saturday morning cartoons, but instead it’s visionary documentary art from across the globe, programmed by the brilliant Cíntia Gil!

For March, we’re honored to present The Shards by Masha Chernaya, a raw and intimate chronicle of personal loss and political rupture. Shot in the spring of 2022, as Masha prepares to leave Russia—a homeland transforming before her eyes—the film unfolds as a series of unexpected farewells. Her mother’s passing, a lover fleeing conscription, and the unraveling of everything she once knew push her to document her world with a fixated urgency. As grief consumes her, she turns to the underground scene, where a generation of young Russians seek escape in music, rebellion, and fleeting connection.

A kaleidoscope of moments, The Shards captures both the filmmaker’s own crumbling sense of self as well as the spirit of the time she is living through.

There are two ways to join:

In-person: Visit our Ridgewood space! Grab a ticket to save your spot. UNDO Members can attend for free with their Member Coupon Code at checkout.

Online: Stream the event live from wherever you are—just sign up!

Following our screening, we’ll gather reflections, questions, and insights to create a longform podcast interview with Masha Chernaya — a collective exploration of the film’s themes and creative process. Want to be part of the conversation? Join the club and add your voice to the mix!

Program

The Shards by Masha Chernaya

90 mins, 2024

In Spring 2022 Masha prepares to leave Russia – her homeland that has changed. It turns into chain of unexpected farewells: her mom dies of cancer, her lover flees army conscription, everything including her own old self is falling apart. Her way to cope with the grief is to fixate everything with her camera. Her anger guides her to inner emigration to the local underground scene, which became an escape for young Russians. This kaleidoscope of shards chronicles not only spirit of the time, but the director’s personality crumbling against the backdrop of global turmoil.

Program Duration: 90 mins

Bios

With a multifaceted background, Masha Chernaya works as a director and cinematographer, editor, text author, photographer, and illustrator, blending her diverse talents to create compelling visual narratives. Her most recent feature documentary THE SHARDS (2024) has been selected for Doclisboa.

Born in Portugal, Cíntia Gil studied at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema (Lisbon Theatre and Film School) and holds a degree in Philosophy from the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto (Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Porto), where she has also taught seminars on aesthetics. From 2012 to 2019, Cíntia Gil served as co-director and then director of Doclisboa, Portugal’s most important and steadily expanding documentary film festival, where she launched the Ibero-American lab Arché. From 2019 to 2021 she has directed Sheffield DocFest.