“Ukraine! Film Festival” is the only festival of Ukrainian films in Poland. This year it will be the seventh edition. Over 50 feature, documentary, short and animated films will be included in the “Ukraine! Film Festival” program. This year’s edition will include the following sections: Faces of Ukraine, Women’s Stories, Mariupol, the Art of Freedom and the Best Short Film Competition. The event, co-financed by the Polish Film Institute, will be held on October 21-29 at the Kinoteka in Warsaw and online on the VOD platform in Warsaw from November 1-14. It will also be hosted in the 10 largest cities in Poland.
The Faces of Ukraine section is dedicated to contemporary Ukraine and its inhabitants. It includes, among others the film “Pamphir” co-financed by the Polish Film Institute, as well as the film “Terykony”. In turn, in the section Women’s stories dedicated to the stories of women: mothers, daughters, soldiers, prisoners, among others, “Klondike” as well as “107 mothers”. The Art of Freedom section includes films about art and Ukrainian artists, often involved in the fight for freedom, incl. “Tales of the Wooden Horse” or “Hamlet Syndrome”. The Mariupol section will show full-length films and a block of short films about the city and its inhabitants since the Russian invasion in 2014, incl. “Mariupol”.
The competition is open to short films: documentaries, animations and fictional films, not longer than 40 minutes, of Ukrainian, Polish and other countries (related to Ukraine through the subject matter, place of production or participation of Ukrainian actors or creators). The prize pool for the best productions is EUR 1000.
The festival also grants the audience award, which has so far received such titles as “The Trial: The State of Russia vs Oleg Sentsov (Russian: Процесс: Российское государство против Олега Сенцова)”, the Ukrainian Oscar candidate “Home”, “U311 Cherkasy” or “The Earth is Blue Like an Orange” awarded at Sundance Film Festival.