Discoveries from Ukraine World Cinema

The protagonist Andrii Dovzhenko finds out a horrible truth, that has been hidden in USSR for years - most of those accused of «anti-Soviet propaganda» were never sent to prison, but to special psychiatric hospitals with a diagnosis of "slow progressive schizophrenia". Andrii finds himself in a real hell of punitive psychiatry and faces a difficult choice - to cooperate with the KGB and return to his family, or to reveal the truth about dissidents tortured in such psychiatric hospitals. The script was based on the memoirs of Soviet dissidents who faced the brutality of a totalitarian system that used so-called "punitive psychiatry" as a weapon against free thought.

Animals in War is a poignant anthology film inspired by true stories of animals impacted by the war in Ukraine. A collaboration between Ukrainian and international artists — including actor and activist Sean Penn — the film is a haunting yet captivating call for global awareness and empathy.

The characters find themselves trapped in a film studio, where an enigmatic individual orchestrates a deadly game. Every ten minutes, the online audience votes to determine the next victim.

“RAPTURE II - PORTAL" revolves around Ukrainian Vogue dancer Marko and the confrontation with his abandoned apartment in the region of Donbas, where the war is going on for ten years. It fuses the idea of a physical lost home and the body of a dancer as an infinite eternal home. The film is contextualized by the self-commented tour of Marko, structured as a hypnosis session.

Vlada Koza sells her house in the Carpathians and flies to sunny Sicily to live with her daughter and help take care of her grandson. But no one expected her mother to arrive. After a quarrel with her daughter, Vlada accidentally finds herself at the villa of the once powerful Italian mafioso Don Fredo, now a widower who is experiencing deep crises - personal, family and financial. Vlada gets a job as a cleaner, but becomes the salvation of this house.

Another shipment of drugs arrives in Ukraine from Istanbul in a cargo of expensive carpets. The drug traffickers are closely followed by Interpol officers, whose goal is to uncover the entire chain of the criminal business. But it soon turns out that the criminals have access to the police information. A police officer is involved in the drug trade...

Five-year-old Vitka and her teenage cousin Larysa both yearn for a life beyond the archaic rules and restricting confines of their small, godforsaken Ukrainian village. Despite her family's staunch objections, Larysa falls wildly in love with Scar, a handsome ex-convict. Hoping to leave their troubled past behind, the two plot their escape. Scar agrees to take on a criminal job in the city. Larysa, meanwhile, fends off an arranged marriage and awaits his return.

A husband and wife are getting divorced. The bone of contention is a villa in Mexico, in Acapulco. Finally, the luxurious mansion is put up for auction, and the heroes go their separate ways. Time passes. The ex-spouses decide to celebrate the New Year in the mansion that has not yet been sold - of course, each is sure that he is the only one who came up with this bright idea. In addition, a buyer for the villa, the local Al Capone, appears on the doorstep of the house.

After spending months as a prisoner in Donbas, Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance expert Lilia returns home to her family. But the trauma of captivity continues to torment her and surface in dreamlike ways. Something growing deep within Lilia will not allow her to forget, yet she refuses to identify as a victim and will fight to liberate herself.

Dasha is thirty, disappointed in men, and wants to bring a child into the world from a very handsome guy with good genes. During the searches, Dasha meets a good fellow, a tv repair specialist. He falls in love with Dasha, but it seems that he does not fully conform to her requirements, so she goes on with her odyssey.

When reformed ex-smuggler Pamfir returns home to his village on the Ukrainian border after working abroad for several years, he’s determined to earn an honest living and set a good example for his beloved teenage son Nazar. But in a town where corruption runs deep and crime and religion are inextricably linked, his plan is quickly thwarted when Nazar sets fire to the local church in a misguided effort to keep him at home. To pay for the damage, Pamfir must take on one last job for a crime syndicate operating a risky smuggling venture in a place where all the rules have changed.

After the death of her father, a young woman travels to a remote convent on an island in the Black Sea to find out why her father funded it for years.

In one continuous shot, SHTTL shows the lives, loves, and inner conflicts within a Yiddish speaking shtetl on the border between Ukraine and Poland - one day before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

Polina is a glamorous businessman’s daughter accustomed to a carefree life. After her father’s betrayal, she ends up on probation at an advertising agency. There, over the course of a month, she competes for a position with Roman — an ambitious and principled colleague who sees the world very differently. Their professional rivalry gradually transforms into conflicts, unexpected closeness, and situations where it becomes difficult to separate work tasks from personal feelings.

The king struggles to find a wife for his son, who is solely interested in science. An astrologer advises the king to host a grand royal ball. Cinderella, eager to attend, is forced by her stepmother and stepsisters to make dresses for them. Once the dresses are ready, they leave her behind with additional chores. However, her fairy godmother appears and helps her get to the ball, with one condition: she must return by midnight. At the ball, Cinderella meets the prince, who instantly falls in love with her. They dance and enjoy the evening until the clock strikes twelve, and Cinderella flees, leaving behind a glass slipper.

Ukrainian journalist Katya Soldak, currently living in New York City and working for Forbes magazine, chronicles Ukraine's history: its strong ties to Russia for centuries; how it broke away from the USSR and began to walk alone; the Orange Revolution, the Maidan Revolution, the Crimea annexation, the Donbass War; all through the eyes of her family and friends settled in Kharkiv, a large Ukrainian city located just eighteen miles from the Russian border.

The action is set at the start of the twentieth century, between a village by the River Dnyepr and the coast of Florida. While the story has ironic, romantic and sometimes mystic angles, the bitter aspects of emigration from Ukraine to the United States become clearly visible.

The crew of Ukrainian NAVY minesweeper U311 "Cherkasy" is resisting seizure of the vessel by Russian army in Crimea in 2014.

Denis Komarov is a policeman. He is an expert in technical equipment, a top specialist. His wife Natasha is a school coach. The ordinary family with a modest income leads a settled happy life until they get terrible news. Their only lovely child, the 8 year old Olya, is severely ill. Her last chance is a very expensive operation on kidney transplantation. The despaired parents are going to sell their apartments, but suddenly they get an alternative solution.

Immortalised as one of the most scintillating and uplifting Christmas songs, 'Carol of the Bells' adapted from a popular and loved Ukrainian folk melody, came to represent the spirit of brotherhood and unity all over the world. The peaceful and neighbourly existence of three families, Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish, sharing a large house, musical evenings and merriment in the city of Stanislaviv in the years preceding and post war, is shattered. First in the Soviet occupation and the persecution of the Polish family, then, by the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, and the decimation of the Jewish family. Sacrificing their lives the Ukrainian family manage to save their neighbours' children and their own daughter. Death and loss come to these families, but the healing power and joy , and a promise that the Future Will Not be Cancelled which "Carol of the Bells' evokes will be everlasting.

Sasha is a Ukrainian sculptor living in Paris who is haunted by absence and the war. Inspired by the death of her grandmother, she creates a sculpture and travels home to honour her memory. Margaux, a Belgian friend, accompanies her, carrying an old Bolex camera. Throughout the journey, dreams and reality collide as Sasha shares diary pages revealing her innermost feelings.

Christina is a Ukrainian woman who moved to Israel through a ‘bride-to-order’ kind of deal. Compared to her life back in Ukraine, life in Israel is great for Christina. She works in a beauty salon, earns her own money, and loves Israel. Her Israeli husband Michael is also satisfied with this marriage. He is happy that he found a woman who can live with him. In fact, he is so satisfied that he starts his own little business scouting for Ukrainian brides for other Israeli men. Michael’s recent matchmaking is a special one—the bride’s name is Valeria, and she’s Christina’s younger sister. Michael went out of his way and found the best man he could get for her. His name is Eitan, and while he may not be the most handsome guy in the country, he is a good-hearted, generous man. However, Valeria is different to her older sister. And the whole delicate balance is at risk.

A 40-year-old loser named Isidoro at the request of his brother drives from Italy to mountainous Carpathian village in Ukraine with a coffin of a diseased Ukrainian worker, who died at a construction site in Italy.

Thirty years old Katya has a tragedy. Favorite man appeared to be a womanizer. During 6 years Katya was expecting marriage, which came to nothing. Her friends decide to help her to find a profitable groom on the Internet, and certainly abroad. At the same time they make Katya to improve her appearance - to effectively lose weight and get well dressed.

Russia 2017. The world could be on the verge of a great war. People are anxious that things could fall apart. Evolving around an unfinished building, a diverse group of outsiders struggle to find their place in this rapidly changing society, making up the mosaic of existence that is life itself…

1227, the last night of dying Genghis Khan. With promises and threats tyrant tries to persuade captive Otrar physician Akerke, the widow of the scientist, who was killed by Mongol soldiers, to save his life. But patriotic woman does not want to deliver the oppressor of his people and severely exposes his bloody tyranny of power.

A small group of Russian soldiers with mixed skills are assembled to go on a covert mission to map out the area of Hitler's new HQ in the Ukraine known as Wehrwolf. But it's not until they get to their destination that the squads leader then decides to unveil the true details of the mission.

Three recently released criminals are trying to start anti-government organization... But KGB never sleep.

The story of a Ukrainian family living on the border of Russia and Ukraine during the start of the war. Irka refuses to leave her house even as the village gets captured by armed forces. Shortly after they find themselves at the center of an international air crash catastrophe on July 17, 2014.

Hanging out with friends, smoking a lot, spinning bottles and kissing, making mistakes, playing, refusing to accept, dreaming with open eyes - life as a teenager can be overwhelmingly beautiful and difficult at the same time. In her debut, the Ukrainian director composes a deeply emotional and multi-layered portrait of a generation whilst seamlessly flowing between the fictional and the documental.

After his phone breaks, Matvii goes to search for a woman whose life he had been observing through it up until that point, not knowing how she will react if she finds out that he's a wheelchair bound war veteran.

When Serhiy asks his girlfriend to marry him, he is met with a sound rebuff and an unflattering critique of his poor performance in bed. Broken-hearted and with his world almost falling apart, Serhiy takes a macho decision to spend the New Year holiday with his friend, Vasyl in Prague. After a fairly dismal night in a strip club, Serhiy meets striptease dancer, Diana, who offers to show him the way to become a sex super hero. But his ex-girlfriend seems to be standing in the way of realising his dream. We follow Serhiy's further hot - and ever hotter - adventures in Prague.

The Secret Diary of Simon Petliura takes an unprecedented look at the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic, which declared an independent Ukraine in 1918, and the later assassination of the UNR's chairman, Symon Petliura in Paris in 1926, orchestrated by the Kremlin at the start of the Soviet occupation of Ukraine.

Bertolt Brecht asked whether there would be singing in the dark times. In the throes of war, the United Ukrainian Ballet Company defiantly insists there will be dancing, too. Far from the land they call home, young dancers take quiet comfort from art. For a while, their work feels like the old days, except there is a new troupe member: a soldier learning to dance with prosthetic legs.

Pianist-adventurer Misha gets a job with the old owner of a mysterious house-quest. But he does not know that the question "WHERE IS THE MONEY?" interested not only in him. Everyone in this house is looking for money.

38-year-old Dmitry organizes a candlelit dinner in his apartment, where he invites a pretty girl Eva. Dmitry gives the impression of a religious person, he is neat, polite, but at the same time, from Eve's behavior it is noticeable how she doubts his serious attitude towards her. Eve gives Dmitry an old Icon, such an unexpected gift shocks Dmitry.

The film is about a young trumpeter Nicholas Shevchenko. He's a talented musician, who also writes his own music, attracting the attention of the world famous musician Eugene Gaisin, who tours the city.

Ukraine - 1636. Someone has attacked a battalion of cossacks that were transporting the gold of the Polish king. A cossack - Maksym Osa - tries to find the missing gold, but soon becomes one of the main suspects.

In the historic Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, despite the cruel war that has been raging since 2014 between the self-proclaimed People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and the Ukrainian government, people try to survive in the rotten heart of chaos, where violence disguises itself as peace, propaganda becomes univocal truth and hatred reigns in the name of love.

Residents of a Ukrainian apartment building gather to discuss the purchase of a common generator for the winter. However, its capacity is not enough for everyone.

Having decided to celebrate the New Year in the village, Tatyana goes on a trip in an old car along a snowy road. Two kilometers from the destination, her car hopelessly stalled and blocked the road of an SUV, from which a smug and nervous Anatoly emerged. As a result, Tolya goes to the village on foot, and in the house he finds his own mother with her boyfriend. It soon turns out that Anatoly's mother's lover is Tatyana's father. This is how the story of Anatoly and Tatyana's relationship begins.

A story about the post-revolutionary generation of young Ukrainian people looking for their place in a modern Ukraine. Two bewildered people meet at a crucial moment in their existence and experience a few days of happiness together.

In the remote Ukrainian village of Dykanka, handsome but poor Vakula loves the beautiful Oksana, but she's holding out for a wealthy prince, and her father doesn't think much of him either. On Christmas Eve she sends him on a ridiculous quest for dancing shoes that takes him all the way to the imperial palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, with the help of some odd characters from the village and the Devil himself.

During the final winter of WWII, as displaced persons return to their former homes in the Soviet Union, an 8-year-old boy is left alone when his mother dies en route.

Two young orphan siblings travel to Moscow in search of their missing father. Scared of being separated and sent to orphanages, they hope to reunite with the last link of their shattered family.

Despite the war, school life continues in Ukraine, with pupils and teachers striving to continue learning even under constant threat. The film is a mosaic of the everyday lives of teachers and students from different corners of Ukraine.

The fun-loving Drahomanovs and the straight-laced Nalyvaichenkos battle for the same picnic spot — and deal with an additional unwanted guest.

The group of immigrants who depart to the United States, by chance finds itself in a deserted forest. Cut off from the civilized world, they begin to build their "own America".

As Carpathian legend has it, Oleksa Dovbush was a heroic outlaw with excellent fighting skills and a gift to predict the future. He was left an orphan as a small boy after a local lord murdered Oleksa's mother. After spending his childhood in exile in the mountains, he returned as a grown man to avenge his mother's death. Oleksa gathered followers to begin a crusade against the lord, but destiny made other plans for him.

The sniper, who received the operational pseudonym "Trucker", shoots criminal authorities one by one. Who is this killer - the executor of someone else's order or the initiator of a criminal war with the goal of a gangster redistribution? This is what Colonel Pogozhev will have to find out.

American Jay Benson has left behind the Vietnam War, in which he was an excellent sniper. After returning home and marrying the charming Lucy, the hero opens a shooting school. The only thing he needs for complete happiness is money. The first offer from a rich client promises good earnings - and Jay accepts it...

Ivan and Valentina decide to celebrate New Year very modestly, without Christmas trees and festive delicacies, in the native village of Kuchugury. But, their city in-laws come — Yuri and Olga Kovalev with Zhenya, their granddaughter. And the celebrities who are going to corporate parties become stuck in the village because of heavy snowfall and drifts on the roads. The hotel does not have enough space, and in-laws, experienced in this business, offer their services.

The action takes place in the USSR of the 20s. Soviet pioneer Shura Klimova dreams of becoming as famous a movie star as America's favorite and Hollywood pioneer Mary Pickford. The pioneer organization of Shuri condemns her behavior, the comrades are working together on the pioneer Klimova for individualism, but nothing can dissuade the girl and take away her dream.

1939. A young Ukrainian-American man Yaro comes to the Carpathian Mountains, because his father left him a fortune under the condition that he would marry a Ukrainian girl. There Yaro meets a Hutsul girl Ksenya and has to rethink his plan.

Sailor Marat carries a great burden. His whole village condemns him since his wife and many fishermen were washed off his boat in a mysterious sea storm. Ever since then the sea has vanished. One day, Marat returns to his village, obsessed by the idea of making the sea return and so the dead. He begins rebuilding his shipwreck in the middle of the desert, dragging it towards the endless horizon. Only his last close friend Balthasar, and Tamara, the sister of Marat's deceased wife, believe in him. Tamara, deeply in love with Marat, who repulses her, knows from a fortune teller that maybe not her dream but his might come true. One morning Marat wakes up by the sound of water - the sea has returned, ready to take what belongs to her...

Nikita, talented young dancer, enters Let's Dance competition to earn money for his brother's surgery but a brief encounter with a famous singer Liza, who hosts the competition, puts his chances of winning and even life at risk.

Year 1947. Commander of UPA Danylo Chervonyi gets into the terrible slaughter of Stalin's camps, where he must go through hell and inhumane prison conditions, prosecution of criminal leaders, meanness, betrayal and despair. Danylo finds the strength to resist repression of the camp commander and makes a desperate attempt to break free, raising the first rebel in the camp.

After many years of actively avoiding her family, Mariia finally decides to pay them a visit, seemingly to celebrate her grandmother's jubilee. However, her intentions might not be as wholesome as it seems, as the true nature of her visit lies in the fact that the birthday girl decided to grant Mariia the ownership over her home. Mariia's uncle Grygorii learns of this and decides to engage in a turf war with his niece, hoping that this will result in the latter changing her mind. However, the young entrepeneur is a tougher nut to crack than it initially looks.

The movie examines the lives of the not-so-fortunate dregs of society through absurdist comedy. The unfortunates of the title are mentally challenged people, some of whom could be termed insane - or merely inane.

"Strong Ivan" is a film telling an outstanding life story of Ivan Firtsak who was born in June, 1899 in a Ukrainian village Bilky, Irshava district in Zakarpattia Oblast. At the age of 18 he became a performer with a Czechoslovak circus and travelled to 64 countries of the world, astonishing everybody with his victories. He was a weightlifting champion of Czechoslovakia, a bodybuilding champion of Europe. He earned the nickname Strong Ivan Croton for his incredible strength. Ivan Firtsak won a great number of single combats with famous wrestlers of the world. From hands of the Queen of England he received a helmet and a belt decorated with cold and diamonds. American press called him the strongest man of the XX century. In 1937 in the prime of his fame he came back to the homeland.