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.

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 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.

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.

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?

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.

The film collects the memories of five different people about the events on the Maidan. Among them are the stories of the mother of Roman Huryk, who was killed on Maidan, Radio Liberty correspondent Andrii Dubchak, artist Oleksii Sai, human rights activist Sasha Matviichuk, and Andrii Prepodobnyi, a former police officer and now the regional representative of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights in Rivne region. ‘MAIDAN. Six letters of our freedom’ consists of six chapters. Each letter of the word ‘Maidan’ is the title of a chapter, which symbolises a topic related to the events of the Revolution of Dignity, the memories shared by the film's characters.

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.

"Hudaks aren't people" is a line from a traditional Transcarpathian song. Thus, hudaks, the village musicians who play at weddings, have long been separated from the rest of the people. It works the same way at a wedding: they have a separate table from the guests, separate transportation, and special treatment. They are most often self-taught musicians who inherited their profession from their father or grandfather. They are usually the "stars" in the village, people talk about them, because life around them tends to be in full swing, even when they seem to be surrounded by ordinary rural life: milking a cow, feeding a goat, herding sheep, slaughtering pigs for Christmas, mowing hay, or going to the Czech Republic for a "stroiky".

The story of the world tour of the choir chapel conducted by Oleksandr Koshyts in 1918-1924. By the coincidence of modern history, the plot of the film raises a number of current problems of today - opposition to Russian cultural expansion and propaganda, issues of cultural diplomacy of Ukraine, the place of Ukrainian cultural product in the world and its struggle for itself.

He spent 27 years of his life in prisons and camps, 450 days in solitary confinement and punishment cells. He endured 23,000 kilometers of transportation and 45 hunger strikes. He was tortured with cold and hunger, provocations and mockery. Three times they tried to physically destroy him. But he survived. And he became one of the co-authors of the Act of Independence of Ukraine, which was symbolically adopted on his birthday.

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.

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.

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.

They have something to be silent about. Those who once crossed the line between peaceful Ukraine and the ATO zone, often without even understanding what lay ahead. Now they—the mobilized and the volunteers—are back home. But most often, when asked about the war, they say nothing because they have something to be silent about...

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.

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.

A documentary story about the participation and victory at the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 by the Ukrainian band Kalush Orkestra.

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

Documentary that follows Go_A’s lead singer Kateryna Pavlenko in the build up to Eurovision 2021.