Mavka: The Forest Song was premiered in Ukraine on March 2, 2023, receiving an extremely positive response by the general public in terms of tickets selling, thus setting a box office record. Directed by Oleh Malamuzh and Oleksandra Ruban, the animated movie is based on the drama The Forest Song written by Lesya Ukrainka in 1912, which focuses on the story of Mavka, the spirit of the Forest, and a young man, Lukash. According to the producers1, the main aim of the project is to raise awareness about the extinction problem and the loss of natural habitats (fostered by a partnership with WWF Ukraine), and, at the same time, to promote Ukrainian culture and authenticity, popularizing its uniqueness. Considering the movie’s distinctive features as an audiovisual product and as the result of a complex process of transposition (or transduction), this paper aims at performing a multimodal analysis that relies on social semiotics, paying specific attention to the different modes that compose this ensemble, as defined by Tomalin (2020), in order to examine the affordances that are used to frame Ukrainian culture on screen. In fact, as highlighted in the official website of the movie, both visual and audio elements play a crucial role in presenting Ukrainian traditions and folklore, as for example the characters’ costumes that are designed by Olga Navrotska and modern adaptations of folk tunes by DakhaBrakha band and Maksym Berezhnyuk. In the light of these considerations, the paper seeks to explore the transmedial storyworld (Askander et al., 2022) that has been created over the decades, paying specific attention to how ecological discourse (Stibbe, 2015; Virdis et al., 2021; Virdis, 2022) is structured to meet children’s needs, fostering ecological awareness while amusing them, in order to avoid forms of ecological simplification (Sacchi, Riva & Aceto, 2016) or of eco-technocratic representation (Mortari, 2020). As argued by Bortoluzzi (2017), eco-sustainable multimodal narratives favour the development of a critical competence, providing opportunities to reinforce the sense of belonging to the Earth system.
Mavka's afterlives: a multimodal analysis of environmental discourse for children
Di Gregorio Giuseppina
2023-01-01
Abstract
Mavka: The Forest Song was premiered in Ukraine on March 2, 2023, receiving an extremely positive response by the general public in terms of tickets selling, thus setting a box office record. Directed by Oleh Malamuzh and Oleksandra Ruban, the animated movie is based on the drama The Forest Song written by Lesya Ukrainka in 1912, which focuses on the story of Mavka, the spirit of the Forest, and a young man, Lukash. According to the producers1, the main aim of the project is to raise awareness about the extinction problem and the loss of natural habitats (fostered by a partnership with WWF Ukraine), and, at the same time, to promote Ukrainian culture and authenticity, popularizing its uniqueness. Considering the movie’s distinctive features as an audiovisual product and as the result of a complex process of transposition (or transduction), this paper aims at performing a multimodal analysis that relies on social semiotics, paying specific attention to the different modes that compose this ensemble, as defined by Tomalin (2020), in order to examine the affordances that are used to frame Ukrainian culture on screen. In fact, as highlighted in the official website of the movie, both visual and audio elements play a crucial role in presenting Ukrainian traditions and folklore, as for example the characters’ costumes that are designed by Olga Navrotska and modern adaptations of folk tunes by DakhaBrakha band and Maksym Berezhnyuk. In the light of these considerations, the paper seeks to explore the transmedial storyworld (Askander et al., 2022) that has been created over the decades, paying specific attention to how ecological discourse (Stibbe, 2015; Virdis et al., 2021; Virdis, 2022) is structured to meet children’s needs, fostering ecological awareness while amusing them, in order to avoid forms of ecological simplification (Sacchi, Riva & Aceto, 2016) or of eco-technocratic representation (Mortari, 2020). As argued by Bortoluzzi (2017), eco-sustainable multimodal narratives favour the development of a critical competence, providing opportunities to reinforce the sense of belonging to the Earth system.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
