Ukrainian documentary film projects presentations at the Nordisk Panorama festival (Sweden)

Director Svitlana Lishchynska, producers Anna Kapustina, Oleksandra Kravchenko

The year 2021. A film director Svitlana from Mariupol films her family who have lost their national identity due to a long-term imperial policy of Moscow. In 2022, Russia invades Ukraine, destroying Mariupol. How will this affect the family’s conscience and identity?

Director Olha Zhurba, producer Darya Bassel

The film depicts the mass tragedy of people who came face to face with a large-scale war.
Events unfold in different parts of Ukraine from the first days of the war and up to the present day. It captures a collective portrait of Ukrainians fleeing the grindstones of war, and those who stayed and are forced to adapt to life under constant shelling.

Director Adelina Borets, producers Glib Lukianets, Natalia Grzegorzek

Mrs. Natalia is 67 years old. She lives on a plot of land in Kyiv where she was born, gave birth to her children, and where she wishes to spend the rest of her days. She is fighting developers who are erecting a massive housing estate around.

Her plot looks like a mess. It is, however, a paradise on earth for Natalia. When the war breaks out, Natalia does not leave her land defending not only her territory but also her city. She decides to join the Kyiv Civil Defense, being upbeat and cracking jokes – the way Natalia goes to the victory.

Director Serhiy Lysenko, producer Anna Kapustina

During one year, the wheel of wildlife at Tuzly Lagoons Nature Park in Ukraine comes full circle, as people who want to live as a part of Nature, fight those who only want to use it. Heavenly landscapes inhabited by rare animals and birds become a stronghold for the dangerous struggle of Ivan and Iryna, the two park managers and activists, against the poachers, illegal developers and corrupted politicians.

Director Yelizaveta Smith, producer Olga Beskhmelnytsina

IVA (40) is an art curator and human rights activist and at the same time a person with a disability. She was losing the opportunity to hear from the moment she was a child, but she remembers how to speak. Recently she lost the ability to hear any sounds. This circumstance influences all fields of her life, especially communication with people around: her ex-husband, parents and teenage son. When WAR started Iva and Mykyta (her son) were in Kharkiv which is 70 kilometers from the border with Russia. It was a rare moment when Iva heard something – she heard the bombing. After a week of living under bombing and sitting in shelter Iva and Mykyta decided to leave the city. They stayed at the train station for 20 hours in a panicking crowd to take the evacuation train to Lviv. But Lviv happened to be not a safe place either. The emergency alarm of air bombing happens every day, Russia bombes Lviv. Iva and Mykyta, like thousands of other people, stayed in an underground shelter every night. Iva’s sister and her two children also came to Lviv from Kharkiv, but they decided to stay in Ukraine. So it was a powerful and sad moment of a family falling to pieces when Iva and Mykyta decided to leave the country because they couldn’t feel safe anywhere. Iva and Mykyta crossed a border to Poland, where they stayed for a few nights in the church in Przemyśl. They left on a train from Poland to a small city under Berlin and joined the commune that hosts them. The peaceful life feels unusual and weird. Iva and Mykyta are trying to be part of the commune but Iva’s disability makes it very complicated because she is not able to hear and she can’t learn German. Iva gets through an appointment with a doctor to check her auditory nerve. The doctor concludes that the auditory nerve is alive and Iva can make surgery to implant a Cochlear implant. In Ukraine stayed Iva’s boyfriend Vitalyi, who is working in the tank factory in Kharkiv. He proposed marriage to Iva so now she is planning to come back at least for some time to Ukraine to get married. When the war ends we will film Iva and Mykyta way back to Ukraine. The moment of them coming back in totally ruined Kharkiv, meeting family and friends, trying to come back to life.

Director Andrii Lysetskyi, producers Gennady Kofman, Olga Beskhmelnytsina, coproducer Uldis Cekulis

Four idiosyncratic Ukrainians from the world of art are thrown, overnight, into the world of war. At 5:00 AM on February 24, when Russian troops invaded Ukraine, the lives of all four changed profoundly. An important question now faces them all, the question that, in Europe, had not been asked for several generations – what is the role of an artist at the time of war? The film will be alternating between four stories and following the artists who seek an answer to that question, each in his own distinctive way.

Daniil’s story is about processing trauma. He comes from the once magnificent seaside city of Mariupol, and he spent the first weeks of the war in a basement, fleeing the incessant shelling by Russian artillery. Eventually, he evacuated to Kyiv, and is now processing the bomb shelter experience through a series of poignant drawings. The film will show Daniil’s creative process and his adaptation to a new city and a new routine.

Nikita was preparing to travel to an artist residency in Austria when Russia invaded Ukraine. Nikita sees his mission in bringing the story of war to the wider world through the industrial objects that have been transformed by atrocities. The film will follow Nikita traveling through war-ravaged cities, collecting various items from the bombed-out apartments, for an exhibition in the Museum Quarter in Vienna.

Mikhail’s focus is on fragile objects he would spend days carefully putting together, such as a crystal ashtray, which has been shattered to hundreds of pieces by gunfire. The film will observe his endeavors of providing a second life to delicate things, a process reminiscent of the very undertaking Ukrainians will have to endure to be able to have a life after the shocks of war.

Anton could not see himself in art at the time of war and has exchanged a restorer’s brush for a gun. He joined the National Guard in the early days of war. The film will see him catching his breath between deployments and then traveling back to the frontline, where he is serving alongside his father, a famous artist.

The film will tell the stories of combat and creation gently and intimately, letting the artists reveal and reflect on their individual choices.

Director Polina Kelm, producer Valeria Sochyvets

Documentary ‘The Shadows’ was supposed to tell the audience about homeless people who ended up on the street due to various life circumstances. Through the camera lens of photographer Oleksandr Chekmenyov, who has been making the ‘Invisible’ photo project about people who ended up on the street for several years. He does not perceive them as antisocial elements, but treats as equals, and helps them if there is an opportunity. Oleksandr considers this a kind of karma that he has to work off. He himself comes from the Luhansk region and has not been able to return to his small homeland for several years because of the war. His works are similar to paintings. It captures only the faces of people we usually pass by, trying not to notice them. But in Oleksandr’s photographs, life itself looks at the viewer – frank, scary, but at the same time fascinating. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the concept of homeless has changed. Now anyone can be homeless and displaced. Those whom we tried to bypass and not notice, now anyone can become them. It’s like some terrible endless lottery. And it became interesting for me to explore what home is, in the metaphorical sense of the word.
Why do we try to cling to it even when there is no physical object left? Why is this so important? Why it gives us strength and takes it away when it disappears. What is actually hidden n this meaning.