Infinity According to Florian, 2022, film, 70 minutes. Courtesy of the artist.
TB2023 cinema program
Ukrainian writer and filmmaker Oleksiy Radynski’s feature film Infinity According to Florian (2022) follows Florian Yuriev (1929–2021) in his final years as an ecstatic polymath in the modernist tradition of artistic synthesis and humanistic experimentation. A lifelong resident of Kyiv, Yuriev created whimsical and brightly colored paintings that demonstrated his systematic theories of chromatic-harmonic language, composed light and music orchestras, and constructed his own handmade violins. In his work as a practicing architect, his masterpiece was a forward-thinking 1970s Soviet building for the Kyiv Institute of Information nicknamed the “flying saucer.” Radynski’s Infinity According to Florian captures the breadth of Yuriev’s radiant mind, but also his tenacity in facing the challenges of contemporary gangster capitalism, when a rapacious real estate developer seeks to augment the flying saucer with a contemporary shopping mall.
