The Winter Garden’s Tale

It’s the last dictatorship of Europe, caught in a Soviet time-warp, where the secret police is still called the KGB and the president rules by fear. Disappearances, political assassinations, waves of repression and mass arrests are all regular occurances. But while half of Belarus moves closer to Russia, the other half is trying to resist…

This film is about what the routine of everyday life can do to the human mind and psyche. It also reflects on the importance of the choices we make and how limited these choices are in the first place. The plot evolves around a family of four. They live in the suburbs, in a strange villa that appears, through a complex game of mirrors, to be more like a piece of installation art than a real house. The main character, who hardly appears on screen, is the son, a man in his thirties. Suffering from asthma and eczema since childhood, he uses his condition to manipulate his parents and his sister. Thus the existence of the terrorized family turns into an endless ritual of attempting to satisfy his whims, and always on the alert for yet another one of his “health crises”. Las Meninas resembles the scattered pieces of a puzzle. It is up to the viewer to assemble them in order to form his very own picture – something that makes the film itself personal and unique.

Nazi troops massacre 30,000 Jews over a three-day period in September 1941. Babyn Yar ravine in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Two sisters set out from Warsaw to Kharkiv to pick up their seriously injured father.

Eight months after the Chernobyl disaster, a Chernobylite woman that stayed behind to care for her sick mother gives birth to a mutated daughter. She wakes up after giving birth to find her mother gone. Masha, isolated and suffering from cataracts from the radiation exposure, becomes fearful that soldiers will take her contaminated baby. While attempting to reunite with her family in Kiev, the blinding mother and infant become lost in a forest. Masha sees a figure chasing her and believes it's a soldier that wants her child.

Twenty-five-year-old Vadym earns a living recording and selling all kinds of different sounds; nevertheless, he’d rather exchange his life in Kyiv for a better future in far-flung Canada. Thus, when he gets a generous job offer which might help him realise his dream, he jumps at the chance; he soon sets off to record the sounds of animals indigenous to Ukraine and also a rare bird native to the Carpathians. The situation proves somewhat more complicated when Vadym’s companion on the trip turns out to be his mother… To the sounds of a synthesized music score, debuting Ukrainian director Antonio Lukich unfolds a visually creative road movie, in which he demonstrates a highly unusual talent for constructing tragicomic situations.

In 2022, Mantas Kvedaravičius went back to Ukraine, Mariupol, at the heart of the war, to be with the people he had met and filmed in 2015. Following his death, his producers and collaborators have put all their strength into continuing transmitting his work, his vision and his films. Also a PhD in anthropology, Mantas Kvedaravičius wished to testify as a filmmaker as far as possible from the agitation of the media and the politicians. With huge force and sensitivity, Mariupolis 2 depicts life as it continues amidst the bombing and reveals images that convey both tragedy and hope.

Kherson, Ukraine's embattled city, has endured invasion, occupation, and liberation. On February 24, 2022, Russian tanks entered Kherson, leading to brutal occupation marked by violence. Despite being outnumbered, local defense forces resisted, and citizens protested under the slogan "Kherson is Ukraine!" An underground resistance formed, led by brave individuals like journalist Valentyna and others who risked arrest and torture to support the cause. After nine months, Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson, but Russian destruction left the city in chaos. Shelling and drone attacks became relentless, and in June 2023, a dam explosion flooded the city, causing further devastation. Despite these challenges, Kherson's spirit remained unbroken, with citizens embracing arts and resilience. By August 2024, drone attacks specifically targeted civilians, yet the city resisted, determined to rebuild and reclaim its identity, refusing to succumb to ruin.

The police try to arrest expert hostage negotiator Danny Roman, who insists he's being framed for his partner's murder in what he believes is an elaborate conspiracy. Thinking there's evidence in the Internal Affairs offices that might clear him, he takes everyone in the office hostage and demands that another well-known negotiator be brought in to handle the situation and secretly investigate the conspiracy.

Against the backdrop of historical events, from the time of Kyivan Rus' until the arrival of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Ukraine, the film deals with the history of the construction, flourishing, destruction and revival of the Mykhailivskyi Golden-Domed Monastery over 900 years, as well as the difficult history of the struggle for independence of Ukraine. the church that continues to this day.

Serhii, a young man who fills his days with volunteer work, loses contact with his mother living in occupied territory. When his mother finally decides to evacuate, he learns that a humanitarian convoy from his hometown has been destroyed in a bombing raid.

When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.

Courage, love and loss. Young people risk their lives with self-funded missions to rescue families in Ukraine’s frontline towns. Told through their own words and unique first-person footage.

Mykola is an eccentric pacifist who wants to be useful to humanity. When the war begins in Donbas, Mykola’s naive world is collapsing as the militants kill his pregnant wife and burn his home to the ground. Recovered, he makes a cardinal decision and gets enlisted in a sniper company. Having met his wife’s killers, he emotionally breaks down and arranges “sniper terror” for the enemy.

The film tells the story of the events in Western Ukraine before the outbreak of World War II, the rise of Soviet rule, changes in borders, and the disappearance of entire states from the world map. The film is based on archival documents, materials and memoirs of witnesses, representatives of the Ukrainian, Polish and Jewish peoples of pre-war Galicia.