Discoveries from Ukraine World Cinema

Seventeen-year-old Tolik, who used to rely on his older brother for guidance, finds himself adrift without anyone to seek advice from after his brother's passing.

Today, liberated Kherson experiences constant shelling from Russian troops, making it perilous to open the theater's doors and welcome people inside. The theater stands empty, or so it appears.

A young pastor encounters a devil while investigating a fuss around a parked car.

Documentary about the problems of lonely old age of pensioners of Chornobayiv District, Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine; pensioners give interviews during household work.

The film is about a large family whose relationships are regulated by the father, a man who is honest but sometimes too direct.

An animated feature with the aim to form critical thinking in the younger generation, based on the first tale from ”Unholy Power“ written by Koroliv-Staryi 100 years ago.

A portrait of a legendary university professor Petro Rabinovich who inspired generations of lawyers.

Three female friends throw a party with an unexpected ending. The title is a reference to the Kyiv metro station Ipodrom, named after Kyiv's horse racetrack and equestrian park, which is located a short distance from the station.

This is a poetic story about one day of life in an abandoned country estate, about finding oneself, about preserving the small history of an ordinary Ukrainian family.

The film is about Paraska Plytka-Horytsvit, a folk poetess and collector of folk song pearls of the Hutsul region. The heroine of the film talks about her worldview, about the years spent in the Gulag, reads her own poems.

The story of Mykola Sarma-Sokolovsky, an Orthodox priest who, defending the ideas of an independent Ukraine, devoted his entire life to the struggle for its independence. From a young age he was the leader of one of the underground units of the UPA. For his views and activities he served many years in Soviet concentration camps. Father Mykola is a gifted person in many ways: he is an artist, a poet, a bandura singer.

A collective portrait of Ukrainians in war, focusing on those who managed to escape, who haven't been on the frontline or experienced the atrocities of the aggressor’s army on their own skin, although marked by psychological traumas.

The story of armed confrontations, heroic clashes and turning points of military operations.

The story weaves together memories and accounts from that period into a single 24-hour shift, during which a naïve young man confronts the brutal realities of the post-Soviet apocalypse, comes under the sway of his senior colleagues, and ultimately crosses the line of humanity. The film is based on the author’s real experience working as a paramedic with the psychiatric emergency response team in Dnipro in the early 2000s.

Lydia is an inveterate habitant of the Moldavian village, who is incredibly concerned about the opinions of others. When her husband dies, she wants to bury him following all the rules. A kind-hearted neighbor, Clara, reminds her of an old tradition – pomana, gifts in honor of the deceased. Lydia is shocked that she forgot about it so much, that her husband’s death fades into the background. But even though the family tries to reach out to Lydia, she is only concerned about what people will think about her.

Ukrainian feature documentary film about a cross country motorcycle journey through one of Europe's biggest countries. The film tells the story of four friends and follows them on their journey. The film also gives unique look in to the personal lives of the riders.

A young couple wants to leave the country. The girl's parents have divorced long ago. They mind her relationship with the young guy. The guy is spied upon. In spite of all that, the girl is trying to find the way out.

The protagonist of the film is time in a provincial town, which is not measured in minutes, hours or days, but in certain events.

A documentary film that interweaves the lives of two main characters: Sergey and Anna. Sergey is an entrepreneur who provides military tours to foreigners. His story is about the rise of his small empire, from a small company made with the help of friends to a huge money machine that becomes the most successful firm for extreme tourism in Ukraine. Anna is a volunteer who had to escape from Donetsk (her hometown) at the beginning of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. She teaches art and games to children and often travels to Donbas to provide them dresses and toys. This life gives her meaning and fulfillment, but after meeting Alex on a night train, she falls in love with him and abandons her ideals. Unfortunately, Alex leaves her when she gets pregnant with his baby. She's alone in Kyiv with no money and no place to live, facing an uncertain fate. Will their paths cross? What do their stories tell us about modern Ukraine?

He returns home in good health, but the mental scars of war aren't far below the surface. Nevertheless she does everything within her power to assist his readjustment to a life lived together.

The short music story about mad grandma which lives in the imaginary world of her weird dreams. Her cat leads her through nightmares like a guide.

Marta, an autistic girl, lives with her mother. She decides to meet a man she has feelings for, surprising Maxim, who didn’t expect this. He finds himself drawn to her, and they navigate the situation together.

A museum guide shows around the historical guns room. Weapon manufacturers exhibit their latest products at the trade fair. A girl decides to resist weapon circulation in society and destroys a stolen gun.

An average working day lasts 8 hours. A third of a day. How do we spend this time? Are we happy? There are just questions here; everybody looks for their own answers. Six young people share their experiences and the meanings of them for their lives.

This is a story about the mysterious connection between the present and the past, as reflected in the photo negatives discovered by chance.

An easy comedy-trip, an ironic essay about child’s view of life. This is enough a funny world, where the main character schoolgirl Svetka notices things that others do not pay attention to.

A new hat, a trip through the forest, stuffed buns and a fateful meeting. A granddaughter tells her grandma about the New Jerusalem and Big Babylon. She points at the map to show her the Old World, the New World, New York, and where the sea ends. They get a visit from a Goon, and the Wolf becomes the cleaner of people.

A stop-motion animation short tells a fictionalized story of Oleg Mitasov, a cult figure of the urban folklore in Kharkiv. It draws on conspiratorial imaginations of the 1990s and the origins of Kharkiv's graffiti. The film is part of the anthology "Khastoria", dedicated to Kharkov.

One day, the one guy falls out of his doner. Illuminated by a light ray, it comes alive and begins its way.

The film gives the viewer the opportunity to learn more about the work of mountain rescuers in the Carpathians, and hear the touching and incredible stories of rescuing tourists lost in the mountains and survived.

Stories of children who lost an important part of their lives due to the fighting in Donbas area, Ukraine.

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The protagonist researcher Dmytro Gromov and the cameraman Angel Angelov are embarking on a dangerous mission: both are planning to cross about 50 km of inhospitable desert in order to illegally enter the protected hangars of Baikonur and watch the launch of the rocket. The heat of the desert reaches almost 47 degrees Celsius. Dehydration, starvation, physical and psychological exhaustion are not the only difficulties on their way to Baikonur. The guys are risking to be arrested and put in jail if they will be spotted by the Russian military forces, since the Cosmodrome is under the legislation of Russian Federation. In such unfavorable circumstances, the protagonist is discovering his own personality traits that he was not aware of before: in vulnerability and fear, he is now inclined to quit his endeavor altogether. The adrenaline of discovery finally overtakes the fear of getting caught. The investigation of the classified object turns into the exploration of the self.

Tolik is a teenager who lives with his mother in a front line city. Each day she asks him to clean on the carpet. But he has no deal with it – he has a business with his friends. Besides, he falls in love with a young woman and helps her with a baby. Through all of these vital difficulties nobody notices how the war comes.

Nazar lives his small life in a big city, trying to flee from his haunting past. Will he ever overcome his shadows? Will he ever dare to love and make another person happy?

Despite himself, a doctor has to go with his young patient in the mountains. He will never forget this trip. Through a "mise en abyme" of the filmic process by an original method that reveals what the protagonist is filming, we are constantly rocked between the freshness of the film and the drama being played.

A girl with a hot body, but a ugly face, being on a blind date tries to hide her squeak in various ways, so as not to scare the cavalier ...

Social systems come and go, but people remain. Since Soviet times an old ukrainian bus has been running along the outermost EU border. At the junction of this geo-political construct this old bus appears as fragile as the past itself. Will the bus come? Or not? Passengers wait patiently at the bus stop: and they dream that the bus will take them - perhaps to a better future.

Vitia is a little person. In Ukraine people like him are neither socially secure, nor have even basic facilities available in the subway, building halls, elevators etc. “They don’t like people like us here,” is the reason why Vitia decides to emigrate. He also doesn’t know the answer to the question: “Do they like such people over there?”.

A taxi-driver picks up three girls two of them get out after a while, and one stays…

A story about a sad incident that have made lighter one’s unbearable being.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has used the Olenivka prison, located in Russian-occupied Donetsk Oblast, as a camp for prisoners of war and civilian hostages from Mariupol. Thousands of Ukrainians, including servicemen from the Azov Brigade, have been held captive in its cells. Those who returned from captivity spoke about the inhumane conditions of detention, hunger, and torture in this prison. For six months, the Kyiv Independent team has been working on recreating a picture of the events that took place in Olenivka. Journalists recorded dozens of interviews with the servicemen and civilians who witnessed gross violations of international law.

A mother turns to the alternative therapeutic methods of her neighbours to come to terms with the trauma of losing her son defending their village from Russian invasion.

A young filmmaker named Mark and a producer named Eva are trying to successfully submit their horror movie script for a pitch. They fail because Mark's script is implausible and meaningless. In his futile attempts to write a new script for a new pitch, Mark realizes that his horrific script has become a reality and his meaningless story is threatening him and Eve.

Visualization (plastical code) for scenography of Shakespeare’s play of the same name. The key idea for the project was applying semiotic concept of cultural space (including theatrical space).

A slice of life in the director's native village in the Zhytomyr region.

On February 24, 2022, Russian troops entered the Chornobyl exclusion zone. They seized the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, holding the plant's employees captive, looting the premises, and using the zone as a transit territory for their further advance on Kyiv. The documentary tells the story of what the occupation of the exclusion zone by the Russian army was really like. The project's creative team attempted to establish a chronology of events on February 24 and collected the memories of direct witnesses to the events: employees of the exclusion zone, settlers, border guards, and a rescue team that spent the entire period of the occupation in Chornobyl.

Unjustly condemned by a human court, a reclusive vampire seeks freedom. He faces seven deadly sins, and one such encounter proves decisive.

The story of a man who turned Ukrainian dance into an explosion of emotion and energy, Pavlo Virsky. The legendary Virsky Ensemble conquered stages from Paris to Tokyo, received standing ovations in the world's most prestigious halls, and made audiences applaud while standing. Virtuoso performances, from dizzying hopaks to complex multi-figure compositions, have become the benchmark of mastery that no one has yet surpassed.

Four significant poems written by four authors were broken into lines and hidden in hundreds of films until they were found and restored.

After the outbreak of a full-scale war of Russia against Ukraine, the Ruslan Shostak Foundation carried out the largest evacuation of orphans since the Second World War. Rescued 1700 orphans from Ukraine, transporting them to Turkey. What do children dream of without parents? Where will they return after the war?

A small creature, awakened by a white crow, tries to reach the sun and freedom. But using this freedom is by no means easy.

The story is about ordinary Ukrainian young men who become heroes. At a crucial moment, they take up arms and defend their homeland. This film is about those who have made a choice in favor of freedom, even if they have to pay with their lives for it.

Two teenage friends run away from home on a car that belongs to the brother of one of them. They believe that they break free from the whole world. But at some point, they have to accept the fact that their escape was not a protest, but a dreadful mistake.

First Ukrainian noir movie, brought to you by the "Agrarian decadence" group! A story about why you should not care whether bootleggers pay the excise tax.

The search for a government soldier taken captive on February 20, 2014 in Kyiv takes protester Sashko to the front lines on the East of Ukraine. There he meets Ivan, a Ukrainian volunteer harbouring a secret that could undermine a fragile cease-fire…

Since the first days of the war, the subway has become a bomb shelter for many Kharkiv residents. For two months, they have been equipping it for a more or less comfortable life. But the local government and the subway management want to vacate the subway of its residents and launch the transit network again.

It is unknown how were a camera, vinyl record and self-massage brochure found. And all of these have combined in the project «aero bic.».

Depiction of life in the village of Horaiivka.