There is a rumor in the Kyiv musical community: once upon a time, in private conversation, Queen Elizabeth II mentioned Valentyn Silvestrov as one of her favorite composers of the modern age. The Royal Press Office hasn’t confirmed it, so no one knows for sure. But the stature of Silvestrov justifies this rumor. Highly respected by the world’s best music professionals, he remains a mystery for a wide audience. The documentary is far from a traditional biopic about a prominent person. It is an observation, a confession and, most of all, a story of great talent set against the backdrop of uncertain times.
On October 24, 1940, Philippe Pétain met Adolf Hitler in Montoire and led the French into collaboration with the Nazis. A black page in the history of France, written by a man whom many then considered a hero: the winner of Verdun.
Due to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, tens of thousands of Ukrainians, fleeing the war, found refuge in Uzhhorod in western Ukraine. The local director decides to attract non-professional actors -displaced people - in bringing his dream into life - to stage the King Lear play. The theatrical performance helps them find themselves and their purpose in a new world where there is war, and the director finds an answer to the eternal question of what love is and why this world should not perish.
During the Fall of 2021, Ukraine was slowly emerging from a global pandemic. Around this time, a film crew began shooting a documentary focused on the country’s wine-making regions. Then, in 2022, things took a sharp turn when Russia escalated a war against Ukraine. This film tells the stories of hard-working people who, against all odds, remain engaged in continuing in business.
Examines documents and traces of the atrocities that took place at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Years after the end of the war, expert analysis of the remnants of these documents has helped shed light on the stories of prisoners.
At the end of WWI, the treaty of Versailles established the conditions for peace in Europe. The aim for the victorious powers was to make Germany pay reparations, and to guarantee a future without war. Yet a decade later, the denunciation of 'Versailles' became a powerful lever for the nazis to obtain power as these reparations would mark the beginning of the humiliation of the German people, and nurture a feeling of having been bestowed a hopeless future. In the 20 years that follow the end of WWI, the issue of reparations and responsibility will effectively poison international relationship. The treaty negative impact goes well beyond WWII as the new European borders it implemented led to many conflicts during the twentieth century. This documentary shines a light on the causality between the decisions taken with the treaty of Versailles, and the ensuing events of the century.
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?
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?
Documentary film about war crime — annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.
The film is a story about the officers, soldiers and seamen who did not betray their oath of loyalty to the people of Ukraine and their first hand accounts about Russia's invasion and annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. They continue to fulfill their military obligations on land, on sea and in the air today.
Described by some military commanders as the deadliest urban combat since World War II, the battle to drive ISIS out of Mosul as the terror group held civilians captive there was brutal and grueling. Shot over the course of the entire nine-month fight, this vivid documentary follows the experiences of four young soldiers in a team of Iraqi Special Forces tasked with leading the battle.
The War Diary is a contemporary road movie that confronts history with the current reality of Russia, Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia. An extraordinary document leads Hakob Melkonyan to undertake the journey of a lifetime:
Alone explores the existential pain of Ukraine through the eyes of an unlikely protagonist, one of the country’s most commercially successful pop stars. Andriy Khluvniuk, lead singer of hip-hop rock band Boombox, has millions of devoted young fans who adore him as a singer songwriter and sex symbol but know nothing of his personal turmoil caused by the political instability and military aggression in his homeland. Andriy is on a mission to raise awareness and motivate his fans to join him in taking a stand against the war in the east of Ukraine, and call for the release of Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker and political prisoner in Russia. As tensions between Ukraine and Russia become a footnote on the world’s media agenda, Andriy use his fame to refocus the global spotlight on the fragile independence Ukraine is fighting for. The film culminates in an incredible sequence of events that result in Oleg Sentsov's release in a prisoner swap. Andriy and Oleg can meet each other at last.
From late 1940-s to late 1980-s doves were an obsession for boys in Kyiv. This is a film about how a hobby from childhood becomes a meaning of life.
Rommel, chef de guerre
Hélène Berr, une jeune fille dans Paris occupé
A man hikes through late-winter woods. Russia invades Ukraine. It’s difficult to reconcile the scales of action described by those sentences, but this difficulty is what John Gianvito dwells on in his new video. It may simply be that this is a diary, movingly plain and provisional in construction, which recounts what its author did for a few months last year: he watched a war on the internet and went outside. Even if that’s true, such a description makes Gianvito’s images seem less strange than they are
Portrait of Volodymyr Zelensky: his beginnings as a comedian, his phenomenon series "State Servant", his ultra spectacular campaign, his election, his rivalry with Vladimir Putin... and his new status as the most admired leader in the world.
Une vie avec Oradour
Mykola is an eccentric pacifist who wants to be useful to humanity. When the war begins at Donbass, Mykola’s naive world is collapsing as the militants kill his pregnant wife and burn his home to the ground. Recovered, he makes a cardinal decision and gets enlisted in a sniper company. Having met his wife’s killers, he emotionally breaks down and arranges “sniper terror” for the enemy. He’s saved from a senseless death by his instructor who himself gets mortally wounded. The death of a friend leaves a “scar” and Mykola is ready to sacrifice his life.