The Ukraine on Film festival will take place at the cinema Galeries in Brussels from 9 to 12 May. The event continues the tradition of screening Ukrainian cinema launched in Brussels in 2016. The last screenings were held in Bozar as part of “BRIDGES. East of West Film Days” in February 2023. 

The event is organised by the Arthouse Traffic film company, the Association of Ukrainians in Belgium and the Ukrainian Institute. 

This edition will propose 5 films: from a restored film classic to the most prominent contemporary films. 

The programme includes the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Days in Mariupol. It was shot by members of the Associated Press team, who were the last international journalists in besieged Mariupol: Mstislav Chernov, Yevgeny Malolhetka and Vasilisa Stepanenko. For this work, they received the Pulitzer Prize, considered to be the most prestigious award in journalism.  

Also on the programme is the documentary Intercepted, directed by Oksana Karpovych. At this year’s Berlinale, the film received a special mention from the ecumenical jury in the Forum programme. 

The film shows the devastation caused by the Russian invasion in Ukraine, with, as soundtrack, a sequence of shocking and inhumane phone conversations between the Russian military and their loved ones, recorded by the Ukrainian special services. 

The documentary We Will Not Fade Away by Alisa Kovalenko was a participant of last year’s Berlinale and a Docudays UA festival winner. This is a film about the frontline life of Donbas teenagers who get the opportunity to discover another world outside of the war and go on an expedition to the Himalayas. 

Ukraine on Film will also present La Palisiada, the full-length debut of Philip Sotnychenko. This is the best Ukrainian film of 2023 according to the Kinokolo National Film Critics Award. The events of the film begin in Ukraine in 1996. Five months before the moratorium on the death penalty, two old friends, a police detective and a forensic psychiatrist, investigate the murder of their colleague.  

A special event will be the screening of the restored film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Sarkis Parajaniants, better known by his changed name Sergei Parajanov. The events of the picture take place in the Hutsul region – in the Carpathians – around Marichka and Ivan, lovers from two hostile families. The film is ranked first in the TOP 100 Best Ukrainian Films rating by the Dovzhenko Centre. The screening is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the director, who created one of the main films associated with Ukrainian cinema. The film is kept in the Film Fund of the State Enterprise ‘Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre’ and is part of the integral collection of film heritage.