This year, Docudays UA joins forces with ARTE, the leading European public broadcaster, to celebrate four award winners. Each prize will be supported with a financial grant.
In particular, the winner of the Best Emerging Ukrainian Producer (feature documentary) award receives €2,000.
*Eligibility criteria:
To qualify for the ARTE Award “Best Emerging Ukrainian Producer”, the nominated film must be the producer’s first or second feature-length project (70 minutes or more) with them listed as producer. Credits as co-producer, development producer, associate, line or executive producer, or producer of short films and television series are excluded.
The jury members for the national feature films are
Olha Zhurba is a film director, screenwriter, and editor, a member of the European Film Academy;
Rohan Berry Crickmar is a development producer, documentary producer, festival and industry events producer, and S&D specialist based in Ireland;
Anna Łazar is a Polish director of the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, curator, writer, and translator.
The Illusion of a Quiet Night / Olha Chernykh / Ukraine / 2026 / 70'
As a jury we were once again unanimous in our belief that there was one film in which the producer’s role was vital and marked this emerging producer as a talent to nurture and reward. The logistics alone of bringing together filmed material from so many contributors from across Ukraine, with such compressed timelines, is testament to the incredible job that this producer has carried out.
We are very pleased to give the ARTE Best Emerging Ukrainian Producer award to a thoroughly deserving individual, Dariia Zakharova for The Illusion of a Quiet Night. The participants were:
- The Illusion of a Quiet Night, dir.Olga Chernykh (Ukraine);
- Where Everything Disappears, dir.Oleksandr Tkachenko (Ukraine, France);
- Silent Flood, dir.Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk (Ukraine, Germany);
- Don't Ask Me If I Killed, dir.Helena Maksyom (Romania, Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine);
- Traces, dir.Alisa Kovalenko, Marysia Nikitiuk (Ukraine, Poland)
