This year’s DOCU/UKRAINE programme includes films that, each in a different way, depict Ukraine’s difficult path to independence and its present day through the personal stories of individual people.
The jury members for the national feature films are Isabelle Arrate Fernandez, head of the IDFA Bertha Fund; Kyrylo Marikutsa, co-founder and director of the Kyiv International Short Film Festival (KISFF); Paula Astorga Riestra, artistic director of the Doclisboa Film Festival.MAIN PRIZE
Fragments of Ice / dir. Maria Stoianova / Ukraine, Norway / 2024 / 95'
A personal story that unfolds as a testimony — one which goes further than a family life within a very iconic timeframe in a historical moment. Thanks to her exceptional personal archive, the director manages to assemble the cinematic elements to create an engaging narrative.
We give the main award to a film that will live on, that is relevant today, and with time will keep on having meaning.
SPECIAL MENTION
Nice Ladies / dir. Mariia Ponomarova / Netherlands, Ukraine / 2024 / 90'
We were taken by the honest filmmaking on display here, where the warmth and sensitivity of the director enables the story and its characters.
We give the special mention to a film that evolves within the changing world and surrenders to a reality, but still sustains its own tale while still being written.
The participants of DOCU/UKRAINE were:
- A Bit of a Stranger, dir. Svitlana Lishchynska (Ukraine, Germany, Sweden)
- Fragments of Ice, dir. Maria Stoianova (Ukraine, Norway)
- Elevation, dir. Max Rudenko (Ukraine, France)
- Nice Ladies, dir. Mariia Ponomarova (Netherlands, Ukraine)
- Everything needs to live, dir. Tetiana Dorodnitsyna, Andrii Lytvynenko (Poland, Ukraine)
