Suspilne Media

A year ago, on 29 December 2019, prisoners were exchanged with the self-proclaimed ‘LPR’ and ‘DPR’. Among the Ukrainians who returned home were journalist Stanislav Aseyev, tanker Bohdan Pantiushenko, and human rights activist Andriy Yarovoi. Four months earlier, on 7 September, Crimeans Oleg Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko were released from Russian colonies. We spoke to the former prisoners about their first year of freedom.

The film tells the story of the development of Ukrainian dubbing. Until 2006, there was almost no Ukrainian dubbing on the big screen. According to the film's screenwriter Alina Stepanets, it is a great achievement that over 90% of films in theatres are now dubbed into Ukrainian. The secrets of working on Ukrainian dubbing are discussed in the film by such well-known film figures as film distributor and owner of the dubbing studio Bohdan Batrukh, dubbing director Olha Fokina, actors Yevhen Malukha, Yurii Kovalenko, Oleh Mykhailiuta (Fahot), translator Oleksa Nehrebetskyi and many others. In addition, the film's characters will recall working on the Ukrainian dubbing of their first films, Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

This film, marking the 130th anniversary of Oleksandr Dovzhenko's birth, reveals the artist's controversial path—from his first attempts at cinema to the creation of masterpieces that became symbols of Ukrainian poetic cinema. The authors show his ability to maneuver between creative ambitions and the political demands of the era, remaining a unique figure in cultural history. 

The artists Zhanna Kadyrova and Denys Ruban spent two weeks in the basement of their house, fleeing from the rocket attacks and sabotage groups of the occupiers that were flooding the outskirts of Kyiv at the time, and then decided to evacuate to western Ukraine. Local residents of one of the Zakarpattia villages sheltered them in a picturesque house on a hillside, next to a river. Doing what you know and love for the benefit of Ukraine is the best thing an artist can do in times of war. This is how the Palianytsia project was born - a series of objects made of stones cut by a mountain river. Zhanna sells them to patrons and galleries and uses the proceeds to buy bulletproof vests, radios, thermal imagers and other things our soldiers need. Before she sends her ‘loaves’ to Venice for the Biennale, Zhanna holds an exhibition in the village where she now lives, so that the people who have taken her in can be the first to see her art.

Makariv is a small village near Kyiv. In February and March, there were battles here as the Russian army was on its way to Kyiv. Many buildings were damaged by shelling, including the local fire station. Volunteers from the organisation Building Ukraine Together set up a camp to help the firefighters restore the building. They woke up, did exercises, had breakfast and repairs, and in the evening shared their experiences and their own stories. Artem's friend was killed in Tokmak in the first days of the war, Ira witnessed the death of her family in Irpin, Dasha's father is in the Ukrainian army, Yura left the camp early because he went to the funeral of his friend who died at the front. These stories are much deeper than they seem. Find out more about youth and war, about repairing without experience and a summer camp in a bombed-out village in the documentary story by Suspilne Culture.

In the 1980s residents of Bakota and dozens of other villages were evicted by the Soviet authorities, forcing them to destroy their houses and farms with their own hands. Now there is a scenic canyon on this place and just married people take photos there. Eevery day Taras Horbnyak, the main character, comes to this place to see where his village used to be. Taras works as a guide - he willingly tells tourists the history of his land, which turned into the water.

A documentary about how Russia has been using popular culture as a weapon against Ukraine for decades. Together with industry participants, the film's narrator, musician Albert Tsukrenko, explores the financial, political and psychological reasons for the vulnerability of Ukrainian artists and reflects on how to break this vicious circle. Unfortunately, our own Ukrainian talents are becoming the ammunition in this weapon. Several generations of original Ukrainian musicians at different times in the 1970s and 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, and 2010s switched from Ukrainian to Russian in their work. Whether willingly or unwittingly, they became tools of Russian show business, which has always sought to blur the cultural border between Russia and Ukraine and worked to promote the imperial myth of "one nation".

Gathering together dozens of his musicians, providing them with housing and work in Lviv, organising the evacuation of instruments from under fire, and continuing to perform: this is the second time that the director of the Luhansk Philharmonic, Ihor Shapovalov, has revived the orchestra. Back in 2015, after being rescued from Luhansk, Sievierodonetsk became his home. In seven years, Igor has managed not only to staff the orchestra, but also to establish links with orchestras from Europe and different parts of Ukraine, and to show that Luhansk region has always been, is and will be Ukrainian. Today, the battle for Sievierodonetsk is ongoing, and Russia's large-scale invasion is putting the musicians in front of new challenges. But they remember why it is worth taking to the stage again and again, to spread Ukrainian and European culture.

The film tells three personal stories about the famous bicycle. The film's protagonists are a cultural manager from Kyiv, an engineer from Kharkiv, and a utility worker from the Carpathians. These are very different people, but they are all united by the fact that they ride the Ukraine bicycle.

The story is not only about Ukrainian museums during a full-scale war, but about the survival of our culture in general. The occupiers are trying to destroy it and steal it, but thanks to museum workers, it is not only being protected, but also multiplied.

This is a story about generations and the importance of preserving historical memory. The grandmother of one of the protagonists, Svitlana Zalishchuk, left behind a diary in which she recorded her memories of the terrible times. Veronika, a 12-year-old girl from Uman, and her mother made a film for the Autumn on Pluto 2.0 project about her grandmother Ksenia Logvyniuk, who told us where people found food and how they escaped starvation. Sasha, another 12-year-old protagonist of the film, did not find her great-grandmother alive, but she recreated her relative's experiences based on her father's stories.

The documentary "Crimea. Liberation" tells the story of a special operation of the Security Service of Ukraine in Crimea in 1994, which lasted more than three months. Back then, the SBU's Alpha special unit stopped a rebellion by Russian proxies who sought to separate the peninsula from Ukraine overnight. The film features the direct participants of the special operation: the first Head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Yevhen Marchuk; SSU Lieutenant General Vasyl Krutov; SSU Major General Vitaliy Romanchenko; SSU Colonels Serhiy Ropaev and Pavlo Dubrov, Colonel Ivan Yakubets, as well as Valeriy Kozyarsky, Refat Chubarov and Oleksandr Paliy.

To travel all over Ukraine, collect 25 casts of Ukrainian girls' bodies and make a sculpture out of them for Independence Day. Ceramist Slavik Pasynok spent the summer creating his project ‘The One’. To do this, he made a cast of a certain part of a girl's body in each region. He formed a sculpture from the casts, and the UA: Culture team filmed the process. Is it possible to assemble something unified from different parts?

Director, choreographer, actress, singer – the usual professional roles for the heroines of this film stopped working at the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Like millions of Ukrainian men and women, who were saving themselves and their loved ones and volunteering. Creative pursuits returned later, but now in a new dimension. Iryna, Olena, Oksana, and Maryna became the voices that tell the world about Ukrainians, their culture and their struggle for freedom. But how can one be heard in a world where Russian propaganda has been spread for centuries?

A story about Ukrainian monumental art of the Soviet period in Mariupol. Photographer Stanislav Ivanov lived in Mariupol all his life. He studied history, streets, houses, monumental art. Some of the mosaics are more than half a century old. The "Tree of Life" panel - created by a team of artists led by Alla Gorska and Viktor Zaretsky - was bricked up after the death of the artist and reopened in 2008. This and other stories were collected by Stanislav Ivanov and art critic Oleksandr Chernov in the album "All Shades of Mariupol Mosaics". After February 24, 2022, the mosaicists, like hundreds of thousands of residents of Mariupol, became hostages of the occupying forces of the Russian Federation. In the film, we are transported to peaceful Mariupol in December 2021 and, together with Stanislav, explore the city and its mosaics, transported to a place where time and the elements seemed to be the greatest threats.

They can sense survivors under rubble three metres deep, warn our soldiers of an approaching enemy and show sappers where to look for a mine. And they are also cute. Service dogs and dog handlers saved us even before Russia's full-scale invasion, but after 24 February, the threats and challenges increased. The film is about how dogs and military, rescue and rescue dog handlers cooperate and coexist, how they meet each other, build trust and mutual love, learn responsibility and save lives at the risk of their own.

This is a story about the Ukrainian comic book industry. The authors introduce the audience to a still little-known and under-appreciated art form in Ukraine - drawn stories. Where did this art come from? When did it appear in our country? What forms did it take in the Soviet era and how did it change in the first years of independence?

An investigative film about medical cannabis in Ukraine. The film's protagonists are people who already have experience using cannabis-based medicines for medical purposes and share this experience with the viewer. They include scientists and doctors who believe that changes in legislation are necessary, as well as those who are categorically opposed to these changes.

An educational film about the birth, development, decline, persecution, and flourishing of the Ukrainian language. It shows how it was formed, changed, filled with borrowed words and formed its own neologisms. The film is divided into five historically important periods: Rus, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Hetmanate, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union. Each era “spoke” its own language, and here you will hear for the first time how it sounded in different centuries. The presenter, a famous theater and film actor Oleksii Hnatkovskyi, will guide the viewer through the historical periods. In a simple, accurate, sometimes humorous way, he will tell how our language developed during the periods of creation, development, division, fierce wars and total bans.

Eyewitnesses to the Holodomor famine of 1932–33 recount the terrible tragedy they experienced as children.