Menu
© 2026 The Couch Critic
Browse 48 movies from Suspilne Media
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.
Sep 2025
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.
Nov 2019
Filmed during one night in July 2025 by forty filmmakers and hundreds of citizens, The Illusion of a Quiet Night paints a vast collective portrait of war-torn Ukraine. Between fear and exhaustion, moments of joy and scenes of the ordinary day to day, we watch as life goes on in spite of everything, witnessing the resilience of a nation gripped by uncertainty.
Apr 2026
The Vertep Imp embarks on a journey through memory, through the darkness of censorship and arrests, to restore the voices of young and audacious dissidents, together with new, unexpected friends.
Dec 2025
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.
Oct 2022
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.
Dec 2020
A documentary story about the participation and victory at the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 by the Ukrainian band Kalush Orkestra.
Dec 2022
Documentary that follows Go_A’s lead singer Kateryna Pavlenko in the build up to Eurovision 2021.
May 2021
A documentary project that shows viewers behind the scenes of this cultural exchange and explores the current processes of integrating Ukrainian culture into the European context. The heroes of the project are the participants and visitors of the festival, who demonstrate with their own stories the unique connection and cultural integration of Ukraine into the plane of Liverpool, one of the cultural capitals of Europe. In particular, Sarah Fisher, director of Liverpool's Open eye gallery, Yuliia Kurinna, a volunteer and displaced person from Nova Kakhovka, and actor and director Yurii Radionov will share their thoughts.
Nov 2023
A whimsical TV documentary about renowned Ukrainian-American artist Jacques Hnizdovsky, whose journey from displaced persons camps to global fame mirrors the experiences of modern Ukrainian emigrants. Told through the eyes of his beloved cat Jérôme, it explores identity, nature, and overcoming loneliness.
Oct 2025
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.
Sep 2024
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.
May 2022
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".
Mar 2024
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?
Jan 2024
At the outbreak of war, two Ukrainian women find themselves in Europe. Tetiana, 45, lives in Poznan and works in a spaghetti shop while learning the language. Meanwhile, 29-year-old Alyona is settling down in Weidenberg, forcing herself to learn German to distract herself. Her husband is at war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian women do not know each other, but their status binds them as IDPs. After 1,5 years of waiting, it's time to make a choice - to stay abroad or to return to Ukraine, where the war is ongoing. Each woman will make her own choice.
Oct 2023
Stories united by the Revolution of Dignity. Charismatic and honest characters tell about their own Maidan: Lesia Khomenko, Alevtyna Kakhidze, Maks Vehera, Oleksii Furman and Bohdan Kutiepov.
Feb 2019
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.
Nov 2020
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.
Aug 2022
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.
Through the stories of representatives of three indigenous peoples of Ukraine -Crimean Tatars, Krymchaks, and Karaites-the film illustrates how Russia has stolen multiculturalism, a key part of Ukrainian identity, over different periods. Together with the film's protagonists, we journey through years of neglect and genocide, where the courageous spirit of resistance is revived, helping these indigenous peoples to restore their culture, preserve their traditions, and explain why it is so important for them to return to Crimea.
Aug 2023