November 18, 19:00, PALACE OF ARTS «UKRAINIAN HOUSE»
Khreshchatyk St, 2
Screening duration: 78 min
Trigger and content warnings: sounds of explosions, gunshots, air raid alert, russian language
The films are screened in original with English subtitles
November 22, 20:50 / KINO 42, Konstantinovskaya St, 11B
THE WANDERER
Yarema Malashchuk, Roman Khimei
Ukraine / 2022, 9 min
"The Wanderer" is a film work made in the Carpathian Mountains in Western Ukraine. The two artists use their bodies to recreate positions of fallen russian soldiers in a romantic landscape. They match the positions with content on a laptop and, in their trekking clothes, appear like hikers spontaneously taking on extra roles. An unagitated, profound sequence looking at colonial aspects of the landscape, the Russian invasion and failed annexation, and ultimately the horrors of war.
MARIUPOL. A HUNDRED NIGHTS
Sofiia Melnyk
Ukraine / 2023, 7 min
"Mariupol. A hundred nights" is a story of a girl who wakes up from explosions in a burning city. To save herself, she needs to go through the destroyed streets to meet the unknown. As an elderly woman, she comes back to the Ukrainian city Mariupol and remembers everything.
WAKING UP IN SILENCE
Mila Zhluktenko, Daniel Asadi Faezi
Ukraine, Germany / 2023, 17 min
A former Wehrmacht barracks now serves as a refugee camp for people from Ukraine.
waking up in silence accompanies the children on their journey, where their own history intertwines with that of the barracks. A moment between past and future, war and silence, departure and arrival, which paints a portrait of Germany’s past and present through the eyes of its young protagonists.
ONE ALOE, ONE FICUS, ONE AVOCADO AND SIX DRACAENAS
Marta Smerechynska
Ukraine, France / 2023, 8 min
There are a washing machine wrapped in tape, meter-long indoor plants with roots and children's drawings among the hundreds of boxes on which addresses of Ukrainian cities are written.
This place resembles a warehouse of lost things.
The silence is broken by a woman's voice, that of the owner of one of these boxes. She is bidding farewell to her home in Kyiv, speaking of the belongings left behind. Each item has a story, a memory that is being left behind. Through her words, the home seems to come alive, each item imbued with a sense of warmth and familiarity.
People begin to appear in the so-called warehouse, taking their pieces of home in the form of parcels. They sift through the boxes, searching for their treasured possessions. Some are filled with joy, others with sadness.
Meanwhile a woman's voice questions, does the loss of belongings matter?
I STUMBLE EVERY TIME I HEAR FROM KYIV
Daryna Mamaisur
Ukraine / 2023, 17 min
"I'm speechless" is a familiar expression when the reality of war is so shocking that language seems unable to comprehend it. Once the full-scale Russia's invasion into Ukraine began, Daryna was in Brussels at her studies. In the spring of 2022, when chestnuts are blooming both in Brussels and in her native Kyiv, Daryna begins to work on a film based on conversations and video exchanges with a friend in Kyiv. At the same time, she is overwhelmed with the question, if making a film about war, how to talk about a wound that is unhealed and will be lasting for a long time?
CHORNOBYL '22
Oleksiy Radynski
Ukraine / 2023, 20 min
During the Russian occupation of the Chornobyl Zone in early 2022, a local informant is clandestinely filming the Russian troops. The workers of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Station discuss their experiences during the Russian military takeover of their facility.