This year, documentary cinema and human rights will reach you through your headphones. Tune in to Documentaries from the Inside | Docudays UA Podcast on Youtube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. We introduce the first episodes and reveal the project’s concept.
Across ten episodes, the Docudays UA Festival Podcast will host conversations with the festival team, directors, human rights defenders, cultural managers, and film critics.
The project was initiated by Darya Averchenko, Director of the Communications Department, producer and screenwriter, who shared:
“We had been nurturing this idea for a long time, and we wanted to create a podcast that would be different — one that would showcase the festival team and engage with our guests not in closed spaces, but amidst Kyiv’s iconic cultural locations. Under wartime conditions, this is especially important for us. We aim to help those interested in documentary cinema stay connected with the festival throughout the year and listen to our podcasts, which we will record partly during the festival and partly afterwards. In this way, we hope to popularise documentary cinema as an art form that is evolving and, in many respects, even more intriguing than fiction cinema (certainly for me). The immediacy of podcasts allows us to address complex topics, making it possible to create a dialogue about human rights in an accessible, contemporary language.”
“The Docudays UA Festival Podcast is a series of conversations recorded not within studio walls, but in the living spaces of the festival and beyond. It is conceived as a documentary audio/visual observation of Docudays UA and the time it is happening in. Instead of conventional studio exchanges, the episodes resonate with vibrant settings — voices of people, the city’s soundscape, the atmosphere of cinemas, courtyards and pathways between events. Each episode preserves not only dialogue but also the mood of the city. This podcast is about documentary cinema as a language for reality, memory, war, human rights, coming of age, loss, experience and the future,” reflected the project’s line producer, Sabina Asadova.
The series begins with Why Wasn’t My Film Selected for the Festival? episode, a dialogue between Darya Averchenko and Docudays UA Programme Director Yulia Kovalenko. The second episode explores the theme of memory, hosted by veteran festival host and moderator Angelina Kariakina, in conversation with curator and film education advocate Olga Birzul, and director Olha Zhurba, a jury member for this year’s DOCU/UKRAINE and DOCU/SHORT competitions. The next episodes will bring together Ukrainian filmmakers from the festival line-up, Docudays UA press coordinator and artist Maria Matiashova, journalist and host Maksym Shcherbyna, writer and journalist Peter Pomerantsev, Frontier Institute co-founder and CEO Yevhen Hlibovytsky, and Human Rights Department Director Anastasiia Bahalika. The series will also spotlight the special programme Ukraine War Archive/Fragments of Resistance, curated by director Tetiana Symon, including guests like Liza Svyrydenko (Eternal Sun) and Serhiy Lysenko (Genie in the Air). Director Mariia Ponomarova will host a conversation on the industry platform DOCU/PRO with consultant and author of books for documentary filmmakers Mikael Opstrup, who will share insights into creating a character-driven documentary.
Follow the latest updates on our festival YouTube channel, as well as on your preferred podcast platforms!
Podcast Team:
Line Producer — Sabina Asadova
Communications and Promotion — Daria Stokoz
Concept Development — Darya Averchenko, Roman Bondarchuk, and Sabina Asadova
The debut episode featured Roman Bondarchuk and Oleksii Futur behind the camera. All following episodes are led by Director of Photography Sofia Buhrii, joined by DP Ihor Chepurnov.
With love,
Your tireless Docudays UA
The 23rd Docudays UA is held with the financial support of the European Union, the Embassy of Sweden in Ukraine, and the State Film Agency of Ukraine. The views, conclusions, or recommendations expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the governments of these countries. The authors alone are responsible for the content of this publication.
