Main Program
The Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin 2024, under the theme "The Art of Being Free," will take place from October 23 to 27, marking its fifth anniversary. The festival celebrates the latest Ukrainian auteur cinema and focuses on liberation from external control and internal erasure. This year's festival highlights decolonization processes in Ukraine and other former Soviet states like Armenia and Georgia.
A special tribute to Serhii Parajanov will honor his 100th birthday, and, for the first time, a short film competition will be part of the program.
Ukrainian Shorts Competition
For the first time, the festival will feature a short film competition. Two programs explore powerful human stories shaped by war, displacement, and loss, while also reflecting on identity and decolonial perspectives.
The jury, consisting of Mariette Rissenbeek, who has been the director of the Berlinale for many years, Robert Wunsch (D-Facto Motion), Roman Bondarchuk (director of The Editorial Office), and Isabelle Stever (film director), will select the winner. The best film will be awarded two prizes: the 'Best Short Film Award,' which includes a monetary prize, and the 'D-Facto Motion Post-Production Award for the Best Film,' offering post-production services.
Meanwhile, the out-of-competition program, "Don’t be a Square!" celebrates bold Ukrainian cinema, featuring everything from thrilling horror to surprising comedies and creative student films. Each program promises an emotional and unforgettable journey through the world of short films.
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SPECIAL PROGRAM:
Beyond the shadows – 100 years of Serhii Parajanov
On the 100th anniversary of filmmaker Serhii Parajanov's birth, this year we celebrate the profound legacy of the master of cine-poetic creation. His works, in which he transformed simple stories into breathtaking visual art, were created throughout the former Soviet Union.
Decolonial Focus
This year's Decolonial program focuses on Soviet colonialism in the post-Soviet landscape and highlights the film traditions of Georgia and Armenia. The films show how cultures have asserted themselves not only politically, but also by reclaiming art and stories as a form of resistance.
Generation Ukraine
In cooperation with ARTE and the Goethe-Institut in Exile, an evening will be dedicated to the consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The films “Basement” by Roman Blazhan (ARTE France) and “A Bit of Stranger” by Svitlana Lishchynska (ARTE/ZDF) were made as part of ARTE's focus on "Generation Ukraine" and have been successfully screened at international festivals. Admission to these screenings is free.
Film and Disinformation
Ukrainian legacies in the archival space
The German Federal Archives have decided to support Ukraine by identifying, digitizing and making accessible Ukrainian films in its collection of over 250,000 works. In a unique project involving Ukrainian film scholars and archivists such as Ivan Kozlenko (Amherst College), Stas Menzelevskyi (Indiana University) and Peter Bagrov (George Eastman Museum), a list of films with a Ukrainian connection has been compiled from the archive. Some of these films have not been preserved in Ukraine or Russia and only exist as contemporary copies on sensitive cellulosenitrate.
The silent film “Pozdorovljaju z perechodom” will be accompanied live by Mykyta Sierov and Daan van den Hurk. This will be followed by a discussion with Adelheid Heftberger (Bundesarchiv, invited) and Anna Onufrienko (Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Center, invited), in which the project and the importance of archiving cultural assets will be discussed.
Two films will be shown to illustrate the project.
