Discoveries from Ukraine World Cinema

Alina and Diana share a profound closeness, yet the inevitability of their parting hangs over them.

The events take place in August 2001, during the days of the tenth anniversary of Ukraine’s independence. Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is brought to Kyiv for an exhibition. An attempt is made to steal the painting. Five guards of the Security Service of Ukraine are assigned to protect the priceless canvas.

From its first days, the Euromaidan was guarded by Self-Defense - the volunteers who maintained order and security by working in shifts. Now most of them serve in the National Guard of Ukraine, and the rest have created self-defense squads in cities and villages all over Ukraine and maintain public order. The Odesa Self-Defense revealed a scheme for smuggling fuel via the sea port to the occupied territories of the Donbas.

It took nine years to create two feature films. They were conceived as a movie-diptych about Leonid Fedorov and a group of musicians formed around him.

A full-scale invasion found the Kyiv director in a small Bedouin village in the Middle East. It was warm, safe, and unbearably far from home. Once the director had a prophetic dream. She decided to return to Kyiv, still the hostilities were unfolding. Despite the condemnation of relatives and the long journey, she finally managed to cross the threshold of her home. But the house itself has now become forever different.

It's a story of one celebration day. How does the young generation experience it? What does it dream about, what it aspires and what it does to achieve it. Independence Day through the eyes of the young and forsaken population of Ukrainian residential districts. Tragicomic history of failing to realize their freedom against the degraded values of the previous generations.

A prequel to the film “Chervonyi“ (2017).

The main character buys a special seed from the pharmacy, from which she plans to grow an ideal man. She wanted love. Desperation brought her to the pharmacy, and the pharmacist sold her illegally grain. Having planted the grain, she began to wait. In a barrel, feeding on her care, He sprouted. Still a fragile, unintended sprout, but an ideal man of her expectations. How many shy fantasies she had on this subject. It was only necessary to wait...

Grigory Smirnov is the head of the lending department at a large bank. Naturally, this successful man has everything he needs outside the office as well—a cozy apartment, a prestigious car, and a beautiful wife. Given his strong position in society, Grigory does not even entertain the thought that his beloved could betray him. Therefore, returning from a business trip earlier than planned, he cannot even imagine that an unpleasant surprise awaits him at home...

Lesya Gongadze's unique lifetime film confession about the most intimate and inspiring moments of her life and her two sons, filmed in Ukraine, Georgia, Estonia, and France with music by composer Volodymyr Hronskyi. Lesya Gongadze's life story will take you to Georgia, Estonia, and France, revealing her prophetic words. You will learn from her about her family, Georgiy's incredible adventures, meet his grandmother, see places dear to their hearts, and discover the love story of this legendary woman.

Little kids, big dreams and smashingly good music – Dixieland follows the amazing progress of four members of a Ukrainian children’s brass band from Kherson. Through steady practice under the wildest of conditions, Roman (12, trumpet), Polina (10, trombone, drums and many other instruments), Nikita (12, drums) and Nikita (14, piano) produce magical music with ancient, wobbly instruments. Not least due to their wit and good humor, they persevere together, helped along by their 80+-year-old conductor and a young teacher. These children of the post-Soviet provinces use American tunes to achieve their dream – to become someone in the world and make something of their lives, no matter how dire the circumstances. From the authors of an awards winning documentary film Ukrainian Sheriffs.

Surreal worlds, elegiac images and romantic letters form a stream of suppressed memories. A young man discovers diaries and film reels of his recently deceased mother. Ukrainian director Igor Minaev melts his rarely seen shorts from Soviet times into an emotional journey into the past.

In a nightclub, a handsome and beautiful dancer Maxim meets a young girl Masha from Konotop. They waltz to the delight of everyone present. Soon, by chance, Masha comes to get a job in the capital real estate agency, which is run by Maxim. He not only takes the girl to work, but also falls in love with her and even, having parted with all his numerous mistresses, decides to get married. But Masha suddenly disappears.

Detective conducts the surveillance for a young man. After a time he discovers his dealer, however the dealer appears to be very creative in his business and a legal agent exceeds his instructions in methods of dealing with crimes. As a result, this encourages the dealer's reckless behavior, which attacks his prodigal father who just appears in the wrong place and the wrong time. He just wanted to give his son a hug.

A group of activists is fighting to preserve a historical landmark in the center of Kyiv from a developer. Their struggle is an exact parallel to the fight for memory that took place a century ago, when the soviet government attempted to erase Ukrainian identity.

A dystopian story set in post-war Ukraine, where a frustrated film director struggles to make the most of his life after being denied the opportunity to pursue his movie-making career. Estranged from his wife and daughter, who have been living in Vienna and are reluctant to return to their war-torn nation, the director tries to find solace in his conviction that the difficult times will pass and life will return to normal.

Closer to midnight, the city is not sleeping. Freshman students - even more so! On this day, they organized a large-scale party for the first time, dedicated to Valentine's Day. Their night could have been perfect if a jealous boyfriend, a jealous ex, and a DJ who has taken the blow of unrequited love hadn't met on the same dance floor!

Boris works as a medical officer in a private clinic specializing in plastic surgery. When he becomes friendly with one of the patients, Ilya, he discovers that Ilya has been mysteriously placed under the private care of the chief doctor who owns the clinic. During one of their conversations, Ilya hints to Boris that the doctor is running an illegal business from the clinic, but Boris does not take this information seriously until Ilya is found dead the next morning. The doctor declares the cause of death to be an overdose, however, Boris begins to suspect foul play after he is thrown out of the hospital for asking too many questions. As Boris prepares to leave the city, he bumps into Oleg and his friend Katya who are carrying Ilya's body to their car. Convinced that the doctor played a part in Ilya's death and is now trying to cover his tracks, Boris returns to the hospital determined to discover the truth.

Young Kolya tries to escape from the harsh wartime reality and the fear of growing up. He meets a vibrant girl who seems to help him.

"Cities and Their Heroes" is a documentary almanac collection of six documentary stories of ordinary people and six cities of wartime Ukraine - Bashtanka, Ivankiv, Mykolaiv, Okhtyrka, Kharkiv and Chernihiv. Its about the phenomenon of ordinary Ukrainian heroism, when people in dark times find the strength to do good deeds, help others under bombings, during occupation and wartime attacks. The characters of the film - a bodyguard, a TV presenter, a puppet theater actress, a mayor of a small town, a restaurateur and a composer - not only had the strength to survive, but also found a new way in life and helped those around them.

Director Zoya Laktionova talks about her 2 months of experience abroad in a state of two realities. Her documentary essay interacts with two landscapes in the same space of the video work. The work uses archival family photos of the artist and texts written in the first weeks of the war. The work absorbs one landscape into another, but it is difficult to understand what kind of landscape this act carries out.

Katya and Sergei are happily married. Since their family business is flourishing, they are thinking of buying a country cottage. It all changes one day when Sergei vanishes and Katya decides to investigate his disappearance on her own.

Musical shows are becoming more popular in the world. New talents are opening up, but nobody thinks about disappointed losers, that are filling the world. After the Ukrainian musical TV show completion, somebody starts killing the jury members. Taras Maystrenko (finalist of the show) is the main suspect, who is being persecuted by police, bandits and ordinary citizens. Will he be able to prove his innocence? Is he a real guilty?

Paris, at war. 2026. Night after night, Lucia, a young nurse, cares for the wounded and the dying. One evening, she sees a strange man walking on the water of the Seine river. At that moment, a hope and a troubling desire take hold of her.

On his birthday, the famous dentist falls into the hands of cruel nurses, called from the mysterious subconscious by voluntary anesthesia. The plot of the picture covers only one day in the life of the characters, real and imaginary. The heroes find themselves in a cycle of events, in rented apartments. Where the worlds get closer…

Zorya is a celestial being responsible for the cycle of day and night, as well as creating and releasing the colors of the sky. However, one day, she mysteriously awakes in the human realm, nearby a small neolithic village, where she meets and befriends a young local potter named Hart who promises to lead her back home. However, after falling for a trap set up by a shaman from a northern nomadic warrior tribe who have their sights set on conquering the village, Zorya and Hart will have to band together to stop an ancient evil that might doom civilization as they know it.

An old Ukrainian legend tells of love between an ordinary boy Prut and the daughter of the mountain king Hoverla. Cursed love finds a new form of existence to remain high and deep forever.

Experimental visuals of water and salt terrains reveal the rhythms and textures of Ukraine’s natural environment.

A girl Ania dreams of a young man, a sailor, whom she saw only once in a photograph. At this time, a sailor, who turns out to be illegally transporting weapons, dreams of meeting an unusual girl, leaving a dangerous business and leaving for the islands. Ania reads "Mahabharata", "Iliad", "Elder Edda" and listens to rock and roll every day by the sea. The sailor and the girl are destined to meet in the final, and a faithful friend will help to avoid danger - an old car, "Volga" GAZ-21.

Kim Kuzin was a very famous person in the USSR. He was born as the 4-billionth baby in 1974 and, from his very birth, he became the symbol of all the children of the USSR. In this fictional mockumentary, we will attempt to find Kim Kuzin today and to make a historical interview with him.

A hotel in a frontline town. A man and a woman, both military personnel, who have recently met, decide to spend a night of love together. Awkwardly communicating with each other, they learn that neither of them drinks alcohol and both take pills. She takes sedatives, he takes sleeping pills. The man clumsily tries to create a romantic atmosphere, but fails. The woman reassures him, and they kiss. During a tender kiss, the woman becomes frightened by this intimacy and goes to take a shower, leaving the man alone in the room.

Once there was a simple country woman, but she had a bad husband, because he did nothing puting all the work on the fragile shoulders of his wife. As time passed, nothing has changed, and he dealt with pleasure with only one thing - he devoured all the food. She didn't think she could change anything, but a goddess Mokosha intervened, deservedly punishing the ungrateful slacker.

A photographer from the criminal forensics department, Arystarkh, dreams of building a career as a professional art photographer.

As in a classic detective action movie, this story begins with a kidnapping. A criminal plan came to the mind of a hired dance teacher - to kidnap his pupil Tim for a considerable ransom. However, he himself is not capable of such risky actions, so he is forced to look for perpetrators. And he found them: Stas with PTSD and a soft-spoken Victor who had just been kicked out of the house by his wife. At first, everything went pretty smoothly. Until the kidnappers learned that the boy was in no hurry to return to his "golden cage". And that he has no friends other than his kidnappers.

Documentary short film about young generation in Kyiv who are trying to escape the world and techno music is their only way.

Pensioner Halyna has been having memory problems due to Alzheimer's disease for the last few years. That is why her son Alexander shows excessive care and forbids his mother to leave the house. She has long since come to terms with home isolation, but once a year she just needs to leave the house. And this day is a meeting of classmates, where Halyna hopes to meet her school love. Her son tries to prevent this, because every time there are some problems with the old woman. The ingenious pensioner goes to various tricks to get to school in the evening in any way. She expects to meet there with her school love Gennady, who ignored all the previous 60 meetings of classmates. But Halyna is sure that this time the love, endured for decades, will still visit the annual event.

They want everybody to know about them. They want everybody to remember that there are violent fighting in our country. They want to be heard. They don't want another people to feel the same.

Timur is a blogger obsessed with popularity. To increase the number of his followers, he makes decisions that affect his fate. It's a story about the desire for a better life, loneliness, and obsession with attention.

Chronicles a Ukrainian march in Donetsk, that happened in solidarity with Euromaidan in November 2013, despite threats from pro-Russian forces.

A slow, continuous zoom focuses on the Armenian mountains above an ancient riverbed, while the voices of two demons echo off-screen. Inspired by Michael Snow’s Wavelength, a hallucinatory meditation on disappearance.

A young man calls a girl to arrange a meeting, but the girl doubts his feelings because of his unfortunate choice of words.

The young street musician girl must to conquer her own fears and ghosts from the past of social influences from Ukraine, where she grown up, in order to admit her feelings to other deaf-mute girl and make a right decision till it's too late.

Anna works as a translator in a German NATO-sponsored training camp for Ukrainian soldiers. On the first day of summer, a new platoon arrives to the camp and among them she encounters her adoptive sister Valeriya. Feeling guilt stricken for leaving her family in times of need and realizing that she only has a limited time of 30 days to spend with her sister, Anna decides that she wants to take this opportunity and fix her broken relationship with Valeriya, whatever the cost may be.

Whilst going about her usual business, Dasha, a carefree teenager from Odessa, witnesses her younger brother throwing himself off of a high-rise apartment building. After looking into the recordings of his phone, she discovers that he took part of an online challenge known as "I'm Playing", which was thought to be an urban legend and was founded by a shady and mysterious organization unknown to the general public. Not realizing the full scope of the danger, Dasha starts an investigation of her own, putting the life of everyone she knows at risk.

A documentary film about the rise of Ukrainian cinema both at the national level and on the international stage.

Monroe, Aura, Marlene: Three drag queens from the Ukrainian LGBTQ+ community raise funds for the frontlines, re-defining resilience and hope between glamorous shows and wartime life.

A theatrical documentary about Hrytsko Chubai, a genius of Ukrainian poetry, a connoisseur of literature, art and music and the brightest representative of Lviv underground culture of late 60s early 70s.

Nastia dreaming about amazing prom and first sex with her classmate Maksym. But all dreams are crashing by herpes, stupid dog and her freaky mom as a hostess at a prom party.

Thi is the story of a Kyiv boy who lives his life believing that the problems of his country do not interest him. However, everything changes when he meets in a dream a Ukrainian warrior who comes to Nazar from the last century. Or maybe it was not a dream?

When the schoolboy Petryk takes revenge on his classmates by erasing their names from a letter, they disappear from the real world and fall into the land of Baronia. In order to save them, Petryk must change himself and reveal the secret of Baronia. Together with his friend Katya and their teacher Bo-Bo, Petryk travels to Baronia to save their friends. Petryk turns from an avenger into a hero and conquers the cruel world of Baronia.

Boy Andrii who together with a faithful friend - a boxer dog - goes on a unique journey through Bessarabia. According to the task of the grandfather-scientist, a young hero and a friend named Rei, it is necessary to find rare and endangered animals from the Red Book. In addition to photos of representatives of the fauna, they will discover new territories for themselves. The feature film was edited from five episodes of the documentary project of the same name. The project included five program series for young and middle school children.

A man tries to reach his girlfriend, Nina, by phone. Instead, he keeps reaching another Nina, who thinks she is in the 1940s, as the Soviet Union is besieged by war.

Shortly before the start of the First World War, in a Viennese cafe they met: the psychiatrist Sigmund, the seminarian Joseph, the provincial journalist Lev, the painter Adolf, a loser in life. The heroes will drink coffee, which will be prepared for them by a waitress, a girl from Galicia, and not even guess that very soon they will direct the fate of the twentieth century.

While the whole world has stopped during the coronavirus pandemic, the residents of the Kolochava Transcarpathian mountain village are living their normal lives. Only ambulance workers know what is really going on.

A series of 26 short stories, each featuring a protagonist intent on meeting someone at a Kyiv nightclub. These stories depict a real-life scenario of club encounters, where the goal is to “pick up” - achieve sexual satisfaction swiftly for the thrill of it - all captured by a hidden camera.

Pandora has just moved to the new apartment. Everything was marvellous until she found out a horrible truth about her friend and herself.

When it's all or nothing, when it's forever or never...

British photographer Samara Pearce travels from London to Ukraine during the war. Her great-grandfather, Austrian Alexander Wienerberger, was an accidental witness to the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-1933 and took historic photos of starving Kharkiv. Samara wants to follow in her great-grandfather's footsteps and take her own photos of the genocide of Ukrainians that continues to this day.

The prince and his courtiers, dwelling in a castle near Lviv, suffer from an infestation of evil spirits who try to survive them. The last hope turns out to be the lazy grandson of the old economy. Lezhen does nothing but read books and eat dumplings. Then the prince promises to give him a daughter who can cook the hero's favorite dish as his wife if the man will kick the evil out of the castle.

A mafia caper comedy set in early post-Soviet Ukraine about a woman who disguises herself as a man to join a ruthless Odesa drug ring, not realizing there is a hapless guy who looks exactly like her trying to make small-time money selling household goods on the Odesa black market, inciting a series of wacky mix-ups.