Last year, we began a conversation about (in)sensitivity in documentary cinema. The topic proved so resonant that the DOCU/CLASS workshop team decided to continue the dialogue. This time, together with directors whose films are part of the festival programme, we will discuss how war reshapes the author’s position. Where does the line lie between professional distance and personal trauma? Does the camera grant power over the past, and can the creative process become a restorative practice for both the author and society?
Speakers:
Alisa Kovalenko, Olena Maksyom
Moderator:
Olga Birzul
Olga Birzul is a film curator, cultural manager, advocate for film education, and coordinator of cultural diplomacy projects. She began working in Ukrainian cultural media as a journalist and editor. In 2009, she joined the team of the Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. Later, she headed the film department at the Ukrainian Institute. She is the author of lectures on the history and theory of non-fiction cinema. During the full-scale invasion, she wrote Your Book About Cinema, a young adult non-fiction work about the film industry, dedicated to the memory of her husband Viktor Onysko, a film editor and serviceman.
Alisa Kovalenko is a Ukrainian documentary film director, human rights activist, and veteran. She studied documentary film directing at the I. K. Karpenko-Karyi National University of Theatre, Cinema, and Television in Kyiv and at the Andrzej Wajda School in Warsaw. She gained international recognition with her first feature-length documentaries, Alisa in Warland (IDFA 2015) and Home Games (Sheffield Doc/Fest 2018). The world premiere of her third documentary, about teenagers growing up in frontline Donbas, We Will Not Fade Away, took place at the Berlinale in 2023. The film received over twenty awards and distinctions, including the ECFA Doc Award 2024 for Best European Documentary for Young Audience and the Golden Dzyga of the 7th Ukrainian Film Academy as Best Documentary of 2023.
Following the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, she joined a volunteer assault unit — an experience that later became the basis for her personal documentary My Dear Theo (CPH:DOX 2025). As a former captive who survived violence during Russian aggression in Donbas in 2014, Kovalenko is also a human rights activist and board member of SEMA Ukraine. Her personal experience and activism led to the creation of the documentary Traces, which had its world premiere at the Berlinale 2026, where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary in the Panorama Dokumente section.
Olena Maksyom is a Ukrainian documentary filmmaker and a reserve officer of the National Guard of Ukraine. Her debut feature-length documentary Everything Will Not Be Fine (2020), co-directed with Adrian Pirvu, premiered internationally at IDFA and received multiple Ukrainian and international awards. After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Olena took part in civilian evacuations and humanitarian missions and later joined the National Guard of Ukraine. She participated in combat operations in the Kharkiv and Luhansk regions, as well as in the battles for Bakhmut and Pokrovsk. Alongside her service, she continued filming and documenting the war from within. Olena is a graduate of the international documentary programme ESoDoc. In her films, she explores themes of memory, war, human vulnerability, and experiences that transform a person forever.
Jeanne Dovhych is an Ukrainian documentary filmmaker whose work explores themes of war, human rights, trauma, and resilience. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, she has also worked as a correspondent and fixer for international media outlets, including on documentary projects that shed light on the human dimension of contemporary Ukrainian history.
