Discover the audience-favorite DOCU/BEST program at the 22nd Docudays UA through a curator’s review by programmer Olga Sydorushkina.

This year’s DOCU/BEST selection is more than just a lineup of films acclaimed at the world’s leading festivals. It’s an invitation to a journey that explores personal dreams and complex chapters of history, delves into painful pasts, and resurfaces in philosophical reflections in search of happiness. It’s a challenging, yet inspiring and heartfelt voyage — one that ultimately leads us toward a deeper understanding of ourselves and others.

Glass, My Unfulfilled Life

A warm, delicate, at times humorous and at times deeply moving autobiographical film by director Rogier Kappers, who, at the age of 52, decides to radically change his life by returning to his childhood dream — making music on glasses. Rogier single-handedly builds a “glass organ” and spends seven years documenting his musical journey, from failures and frustrations to first successes. Watching his path unfold becomes a kind of therapeutic experience: as we follow Rogier, we can’t help but ask ourselves — what if I had believed in my dreams? And perhaps... it’s not too late to take that first step? The film delicately explores themes of self-discovery, passion, and the search for meaning. Glass, My Unfulfilled Life premiered at IDFA and received an award at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival.

The Flats

Director Alessandra Celesia explores the personal and collective memory of the residents of Belfast’s New Lodge neighborhood, where the pain of the Troubles — the nearly 30-year conflict between Catholics and Protestants — still echoes.

At the heart of the film is Joe McNally, a man worn down by the years, who endured the murder of his uncle in 1975, when Joe was just nine years old. Together with the director and a psychologist, he reconstructs key moments from his childhood: his uncle’s funeral, the funeral of IRA leader Bobby Sands, conversations with his grandmother, and a holiday in a caravan bought with compensation money. Through these reenactments, the film explores how childhood trauma becomes an unhealed wound that echoes throughout a lifetime.

The Flats weaves together intimate memories and archival footage to create a mosaic where past and present merge into one. The film stands as a powerful testament to how communities strive to heal from the deep wounds of the past, drawing strength from memory and mutual support.

The film had its world premiere at the CPH:DOX festival in Copenhagen, where it won an award. It later received a prize in the international competition at the Visions du Réel festival in Switzerland and was named Best Irish Documentary at Docs Ireland 2024.

Agent of Happiness

Amber Kumar Gurung travels through the mountain villages of Bhutan, asking residents 148 questions — from “Do you have goats?” to “When was the last time you cried?” His journey is not a whim, but an official assignment, as Bhutan officially measures national happiness, and the people conducting these surveys are called “agents of happiness.” Sometimes the respondents’ answers bring a smile, and other times they tug at your heart.

Set against the majestic Himalayas, the film combines philosophical depth with gentle humor, gradually shifting from a social study to an intimate portrait of Amber himself — a forty-year-old man living with his elderly mother, dreaming of marriage and Bhutanese citizenship. Through his eyes, we see modern Bhutanese society — the daily life, traditions, challenges, joys, and loneliness.

This film, directed by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó, has been screened at over 40 international festivals, won the Audience Award at the San Francisco Film Festival, and received the top prize at the Biografilm Festival in Bologna.

Milisuthando

Milisuthando is a deeply personal, essayistic documentary by filmmaker and writer Milisuthando Bongela that explores the impact of apartheid on her own identity and contemporary South African society. Using archival footage, poetic narration, heartfelt conversations with loved ones, and visually striking editing, Bongela crafts a cinematic essay on memory, race, love, and belonging.

Filmmaker of Milisuthando grew up in Transkei, a black Republic created by the apartheid regime. It was an illusion of independence meant to conceal systemic racial segregation. The film spans nearly 30 years, weaving the personal with the political to show how racial inequality persists in subtle, almost invisible structures of thought, emotion, and relationships.

Milisuthando won the Best Debut Award at the Durban International Film Festival, premiered at Sundance 2023, and was featured at CPH:DOX 2023, Sheffield DocFest 2023, among many others.

Trains

A stunning, wordless film poem by Polish documentary master Maciej Drygas, made entirely from archival black-and-white footage. It is a meditative journey through early 20th-century Europe, where each frame is a fragment of history and every train symbolizes both progress and catastrophe.

Drygas sifted through hundreds of archives around the world to create this hypnotic, deeply emotional narrative of a century of dreams and nightmares. The film contains no commentary or titles — only images and an atmospheric soundscape: the rhythmic rumble of wheels, industrial noise, the sigh of metal, and music by Paweł Szymański. From steam locomotive workshops to crowded refugee carriages, from luxurious tourist journeys to wartime echelons — this is not merely captivating archival footage, but a profound exploration of memory, trauma, and time.

Trains won the Grand Prix for Best Film and Best Editing at IDFA 2024 and became a true festival sensation.

Featured image: Still from Agent of Happiness

The 22nd Docudays UA is held with the financial support of the European Union, the Embassy of Sweden in Ukraine, International Renaissance Foundation. The opinions, conclusions, or recommendations do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union, the governments, or organisations of these countries. Responsibility for the content of the publication lies exclusively with the authors and editors of the publication.