Description
A rock speaks, an invisible worker dances herself into view, a filmmaker confronts the people he has turned into cinema, and wildlife inhabits the toxic remains of Soviet industry. Moving between animation, documentary, essay, and performance, these films descend underground — into buried histories, hidden lives, and damaged landscapes. Between destruction and renewal, they reveal life reorganizing itself within the ruins.
Films in this programme
Kyiv Cake
Mykyta Lyskov · Estonia / Ukraine · 2025 · 20'
The events of the movie unfold in modern Ukraine. A child is born into a poor family, the parents do everything possible to survive, but just when the crisis reaches its peak, a new danger flares up.
Mykyta Lyskov
Mykyta Lyskov started his career in the early 2000s as a classical painter but later worked as a designer in the advertising business. Since 2007, the help of absurdity and black humor. Collaborates with musicians, creating visual accompaniment for live performances, works as a VJ. of computer technology. Since 2015 making lections and animation screenings in Ukraine.
Mind Your Step
Alina Milkina · Netherlands · 2026 · 5'
A middle-age woman Tamara works as a metro and train station cleaner, having emigrated from her home in search of a better life. Working in a position seen by society as a low class job, Tamara exists in the invisibility of the railway space, performing her duties without any kind of interaction with those passing by. Her daily routine is interspersed with memories of a past life that was filled with emotions, people and, especially, dancing. One day, something changes in her and she dances in front of people in a subway car, taking off her mask of invisibility, disturbing people who finally notice her, breaking subjective social norms, and liberating herself.
Alina Milkina
Alina Milkina is a Ukrainian Netherlands-based filmmaker. While growing up in Alchevsk, Ukraine, Alina used to watch a lot of USSR animation, which influenced her future storytelling signature. She graduated from Minerva Academy in Groningen, the Netherlands, with a degree in illustration, and obtained a master’s degree in animation from AKV St. Joost in ’s-Hertogenbosch. Her graduation film Morning Grass premiered at Annecy in 2021. After working in the Dutch film industry as a 2D animator, Alina focused her practice on independent filmmaking. In her storytelling, she portrays themes of longing for home and the poetry of our surroundings.
Alter Ego
Sonia Leliukh · Germany / Ukraine · 2025 · 10'
Between minesweeper and family photos, the filmmaker faces the grief over the grandfather with radical honesty. A rough yet deeply tender work of remembrance.
Sonia Leliukh
Sonia Leliukh is a Ukrainian media artist working at the intersection of animation and documentary film. Their work focuses on themes of war, memory, and cultural identity, exploring how different backgrounds shape perceptions of reality and relationships between people and their environment. Their films have received international recognition at festivals such as Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival, DOK Leipzig, and others. In addition, they are a co-founder of Dzyga-Dzyga, a collective that organizes film screenings, lectures, and workshops aimed at promoting Ukrainian art and cinema.
Giant
Vadim Mochalov · Ukraine · 2026 · 16'
While waiting for the results of the Molodist Film Festival selection, queer film director and bachelor's graduate Tim has not-so-pleasant encounters in Kyiv with his friends, relatives and colleagues, who became part of his 30-minute thesis film.
Vadim Mochalov
Vadim Mochalov is a Ukrainian director, screenwriter, and producer based in Kyiv. He enrolled in the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts in 2019. In 2023, Vadim directed his bachelor's thesis film, The Return, followed by his master's film, The Story, in 2025. His works have been screened at festivals such as the SUNNY BUNNY LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, Mykolaichuk Open, Wiz-Art Lviv International Short Film Festival, Riga International Short Film Festival 2ANNAS, GAZE International LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, Mezipatra Queer Film Festival, and others. In 2026, Vadim completed his short film debut, Giant, which tells the story of a queer film school graduate awaiting a selection decision from the Molodist Film Festival regarding his 30-minute thesis film.
I Am a Rock
Teta Tsybulnyk · Estonia / Ukraine · 2026 · 5'
Hiiumaa Island, Estonia. About 455 million years ago, a meteorite fell here, forming a crater 4 kilometers in diameter. This event is now represented by a landmark, a 1:100 scale model field of the Kärdla meteorite crater. In the middle of the field, there is a rock — or perhaps two rocks? One is an object of the speechless wilderness: a rock is a rock is a rock. The other is a signifier, an agent of the symbolic domain that participates in language and claims to be a meteorite. Playing with Magritte's "The Treachery of Images" and a song by Simon & Garfunkel, the work delves into the paradoxical relationship between nature, language, and representation.
Teta Tsybulnyk
Teta Tsybulnyk is an artist and practising psychoanalyst born in Kyiv, Ukraine. She studied sociology at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, social anthropology at the Central European University, and clinical psychology at the Ukrainian Catholic University. In 2017, she co-founded ruїns collective and has since co-authored a series of video works exploring more-than-human perspectives on landscape. In her current practice, Teta cross-pollinates artistic and psychoanalytic sensibilities, working with moving image, text, and event. Her research is centred on the unconscious of landscape, dreamwork, and the (im)possibilities of language.
White Cliffs of Vinnytsia
Karolina Uskakovych · Ukraine · 2026 · 23'
Khimprom was once among the largest fertilizer producers in the Soviet Union. The chemical plant went bankrupt, leaving a toxic legacy in its wake. A phosphogypsum stack, known locally as the "White Mountain", stands as the silent guardian to an obscured industrial past, while simultaneously offering refuge to an emerging ecosystem of thriving urban wildlife. The White Cliffs of Vinnytsia unravels hidden histories of agricultural chemical production and the unexpected natures that emerge from post-industrial landscapes.
Karolina Uskakovych
Karolina Uskakovych is a multidisciplinary filmmaker, designer, and artist whose work explores the intersections of environment, culture, and theory. She holds a master’s degree in Nonlinear Narrative from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, and currently works as a research associate at the University of Nottingham. She is a member of the Digital Ecologies Research Group and a co-founder of the Ukrainian Environmental Humanities Network, an interdisciplinary space for academics, practitioners, and artists interested in decolonial approaches to environmental research and practice in Ukraine.
Screenings
Fri, 16 Oct 2026 · 21:00 · Followed by Q&A
Prenzlauer Allee 80, 10405 Berlin
About the Competition
Short Film Competition
The UFFB Short Film Competition showcases the most exciting emerging voices in Ukrainian cinema. Each year an international jury selects from a curated programme of short films — fiction, documentary, and animation.
Awards
Best Ukrainian Short Film
€1,000, awarded by jury
Pluto Film Audience Design Consultancy Award
€1,500 consultation, sponsored by Pluto Film
