Resilience, courage and survival in the face of war
FILMS FROM UKRAINE
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Bozhena Tretiakova
Kyiv, 1891. In the aftermath of a series of Russian Imperial decrees that restricted the use, publication, and teaching of the Ukrainian language, young poet Lesya Ukrainka gathers a secret literary circle, Pleyada, in the Kosach family home. Together with her brother Mykhailo Kosach, Oleksandra Sudovshchykova, Maksym Slavynskyi, and sisters Liudmyla and Oksana Starytska, she seeks to revive the Ukrainian language through translations of world classics and by creating a community of like-minded young intellectuals.
Their efforts soon attract the attention of Arkadii Syvtsov, a government official assigned to monitor the Ukrainian movement in Kyiv. Faced with growing pressure, Lesya and her friends must decide whether to step back for the sake of their safety or risk everything for the right to speak, create, and remain true to themselves.
Pleiada of Lesya Ukrainka is a historical drama about the birth of cultural resistance, the price of freedom, and the power of young people who refused to stay silent when their language and identity were under threat.
Sofya Vasylenko
“Teenage girl Ira is planning to leave occupied Luhansk for good with her younger brother, hoping to finally be reunited with their mom. But on their last day at school, the principal tells them that their mother has died. Under the excuse of a “fun school trip to Tuapse,” the kids are sent on a journey that will change their lives. But when children accidentally finds some documents, they uncover the truth hidden behind the adults’ caring words.
Now, in a world where chocolate candies are the most valuable currency, the children face the hidden lies of the adult world for the first time — holding on only to the quiet hope inside themselves.”
Maria Kravchenko
Cinematographer: Vitalii Radchenko.
“The theatre in Chernihiv becomes a true shelter for its actors, where life between two realities blurs the line between theatre and the real war.
Since the beginning of the war, the actors have hidden in the most important home of their lives — the theatre. Even when soldiers were there, when a missile struck the theatre, when the sirens sounded, they continued to create a sense of home and life, establishing their own reality. Until the war decided the fate of the men.”
Directors: Jonathan Schneider
Producer: Oleksandra Simenko, Jonathan Schneider
“Students of the World – Ukraine” follows two children growing up in a country shaped by war, yet experiencing it in very different ways.
Veronika lives in Stare Selo, a small village south of Lviv in western Ukraine. She takes us through her everyday life at school, with her family and during her free time. Although the war is less visible here than in the east of the country, it remains part of daily life – from moments of remembrance to the uncertainty caused by air-raid alerts.
More than 850 kilometres away, Sasha lives in Kharkiv, close to the Russian border. Ongoing missile and drone attacks have fundamentally changed his school life. For safety, he attends lessons in an underground bunker school, while other parts of his education continue online. Sasha shows what it means to grow up, learn and spend time with friends in a city repeatedly affected by air raids.
Both children tell their stories in their own words. Without an adult narrator, the documentary stays close to their perspectives and shows not only the impact of war, but also the everyday lives that continue alongside it: school, hobbies, friendships, family and hopes for the future. Through Veronika and Sasha, the film offers an intimate view of childhood in Ukraine and of a generation trying to live ordinary lives under extraordinary circumstances.
Vyacheslav (Slavik) Bihun v
Don’t spit in your swell because if water isn’t well, there might be a hell. In the name of their children, justice thirsty villagers, of what once used to be a place like a paradise, whose houses now surrounded by an industrial contaminating monster, strive to hold the state responsible in the first Ukrainian environmental case at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.