Moon Man

A temporary house for abandoned children near the front line in eastern Ukraine is run by a small group of social workers determined to provide comfort and safety. It may be humble and somewhat run-down, but this house is filled with love and offers up to nine months of refuge to kids whose fate will be determined by the system. During this short time, the caretakers try to nurture within them a sense of stability and normalcy.

Reflective observations of Ukraine in wartime are interwoven with eye-witness accounts to contemplate the ultimate tragedy: the normalization of war.

Intercepted is a journey through Ukraine that reveals the banality of evil behind the Russian invasion with the shocking juxtaposition of two realities: the Ukrainians who have been suffering and resisting the war violence, and the Russian military, and civilians, who have been perpetrating it.

Young couple Aurora and Darko move to live in her grandpa’s house in the post-war de-occupied village. They are taking care of an 88-year-old man, who’s blind. Aurora begins to be tormented by the fear of death. Gradually, it becomes the central theme of their lives and puts everything in its place.

In a series of letters to her young son, a mother, soldier and filmmaker documents her thoughts from the Ukrainian frontline.

In the wild steppes of southern Ukraine, a young nature researcher named Yura is looking for an endangered species of groundhog but instead witnesses a crime. Eager to expose the truth, Yura takes his photo evidence to the local newspaper's editorial office. However, he quickly realizes that nobody there cares about pursuing justice. While a big war is looming over the horizon, Yura's naive worldview is splintering in a storm of fake news, rigged political elections, and mysterious cult rituals. On his quest, the hero is about to find out who he really is-an endangered species of a good man or just a loser?

The Vilnius Palace of Marriage, opened in 1974, is highly reminiscent of Soviet-era modernist architecture in Ukraine. Mariia’s dance represents her emerging womanhood in a space traditionally meant for the initiation ritual of two people. An episode of the anthology project “Dance + City”, which bridges contemporary dance and architecture across Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, France, and Ukraine. The film was screened both as an episode within the anthology and through independent festival and award distribution.

The story of the turbulent youth of Roma, a 13-year-old street boy neglected by his family and the state, who becomes a poster boy for the Ukrainian Revolution in 2014.

In the quiet of their home, filmmaker Maryna Nikolcheva documents her husband Max as he drifts through a midlife crisis. Once celebrated for his art, Max now edits commercials he can't stand, finding meaning only in the slow, obsessive restoration of a battered old car. Through the lens of Maryna's camera, we witness the small victories, frustrations, and tender moments that make up their shared life. When Russia invades Ukraine, the couple is torn apart, connected only through video calls. Amid missile strikes, blackouts, and uncertainty, they confront the fragility of life and the enduring pull of their shared craft. Despite the backdrop of war, Max begins to find happiness again – but, like safety itself, it remains precarious and fleeting.

Iryna Tsilyk: “Red Zone is an animated documentary film essay in which I attempt to reflect on the question of what it means to be a woman in times of war. The Red Zone is a dangerous area on the frontline where hostilities take place. However, it is also a place of insecurity for those who live in the shadow of a constant threat. We are a generation of people with emergency backpacks on our shoulders. As a modern woman, the wife of a soldier, a mother, a filmmaker, a poet, a friend to many militaries, and a great-granddaughter of those who suffered in other wars and Stalinist prisoner camps, I have something to say about the feeling of insecurity“.

Young actors Marta and Andriy are at the peak of their relationship, when they should decide what to do next in Kyiv city, in a country where the war is going on.

The story weaves together memories and accounts from that period into a single 24-hour shift, during which a naïve young man confronts the brutal realities of the post-Soviet apocalypse, comes under the sway of his senior colleagues, and ultimately crosses the line of humanity. The film is based on the author’s real experience working as a paramedic with the psychiatric emergency response team in Dnipro in the early 2000s.

When I first entered the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute Library's interior, I felt as if I were floating in the middle of the eight-floor atrium, gliding from one level to another. However, the reality of gravity made me climb the stairs and explore all the compositional variations in the architects' spatial design. Together with dancers Yaroslav Kaynar and Anastasia Kharchenko, we came up with a game: to imagine that we had suddenly found ourselves on an unknown planet. An environment of which we know nothing - what is soft and what is hard, what we can lean on and what can harm us. A space where familiar objects - like stairs and tables - have unknown uses that we still need to discover. This was our departure point for all choreographic improvisations, as we experimented with our own gravitas and moved towards a certain still point.