This Rain Will Never Stop takes the audience on a powerful, visually arresting journey through humanity’s endless cycle of war and peace. The film follows 20-year-old Andriy Suleyman as he tries to secure a sustainable future while navigating the human toll of armed conflict. From the Syrian civil war to strife in Ukraine, Andriy’s existence is framed by the seemingly eternal flow of life and death.
After spending months as a prisoner in Donbass, Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance expert Lilia returns home to her family. But the trauma of captivity continues to torment her and surface in dreamlike ways. Something growing deep within Lilia will not allow her to forget, yet she refuses to identify as a victim and will fight to liberate herself.
The film does not have a main character, but instead explores the experience of war through the prism of the collective and the individual: those forced to flee, those who take up arms, those who lose their homes or are left to live among the ruins. The film shows people's reactions to aggression and violence, to the change in the space in which they live, and their adaptation to a new reality.
In the familiar surroundings of their everyday lives, they talk about things that matter to them, about experiences that move them, about first love and loss, hopes and fears. 13 adolescents from a school in Donbass which was destroyed during the war in Ukraine, and subsequently rebuilt, share themselves in front of the camera. 13 lives inhabiting an intermediary space, both emotionally and socially.
What is left backstage of the heroic videos of our warriors in Ukraine? What do they have to face, one on one, in peaceful life, and where does the war stop?
July 23, 2018. An important date for ex-FEMEN leader Oxana Chatchko - the opening of her exhibition of blasphemous icons. So begins a day of wandering across Paris. Amidst encounters with lovers and an art critic, and an appointment to confirm her political refugee status, memories of her past as a feminist activist, and the traumas and betrayals suffered during her fight, resurface. Can she reawaken her desire to live?
The director’s father, Soviet figure skating star, went on tours to the imaginary West and filmed his life in the transition period of the 80s and 90s. Rediscovering his amateur VHS archive, a director explores his vision of paradise against the changing historical background. 15 videotapes, the spirit of traveling to the West. The birth of a daughter. The collapse of the USSR. Fragments of Ice is a journey of growing-up for society, for the father, and for the daughter. A journey that is ongoing.
This is a story of a young German man, Michel, whose dream is to lead a simple life far from civilization. He lives in the Ukrainian mountains and takes care of endangered animals - water buffaloes. After 10 years of being a loner, Michel falls in love with Vera, a woman from his hometown in Germany, who has two small kids from a previous relationship. Michel moves back to Germany and tries to create a new family with Vera. In the end Michel has to decide - is love worth a broken dream?
The family has to celebrate the New Year at the new place for the first time. Despite all the efforts, there is no holiday spirit and everything goes wrong. Almost everything.
With the escalation of Russia's war on Ukraine, the seemingly unbreakable bond of a vibrant cheerleading team of 50+ year old women called "Nice Ladies" is challenged. They face impossible choices between motherland and grandmotherhood, between staying and leaving. Core team member Sveta flees with her family to the Netherlands, while captain Valia and coach Nadia stay behind in the repeatedly bombed city of Kharkiv. Torn apart, the ladies try to keep contact to hold on to their sanity amid terror, heartbreak, and the plague of Sveta's survivor's guilt. Will the team be able to reunite, save their sisterhood, and find a common language through the emerging scars of war?
Leva, a kind-hearted young poet, lives and works at a construction site on the outskirts of a city. He dreams of moving to the city, where he wants to enrol in the university. Leva develops feelings towards one of his workmates, but keeps them to himself. Until he starts to believe the affection might be mutual.
During a large storm, the sea flushes a Second World War bomb to the beach of a port city. The city authorities decide to evacuate the area. Khrystyna, a 45-year-old single woman, has no choice but to leave the place. The gathering point for the people is the city theatre. There she meets a young man Illia, a stage worker, who is responsible for the evacuated people. There is an understanding and intimacy between them that frightens both.
On February 23rd, 14 of the Ukrainian musicians in Kyiv Soloists start a short tour with the orchestra to Italy. The same night Russia invaded their home country. In the chaos that follows they decide to expand their tour around Europe, spreading Ukrainian culture and message of peace. While navigating their journey, they have to come to terms with their new life as refugees. Intertwined is a musical journey of their fighting spirit, sorrow, hope and loneliness. How are they going to make choices for their future, when the war overshadows everything?
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, the thriving electronic scene changed forever. Overnight, producers, DJs, club owners, staff, promoters and curators became soldiers, refugees and volunteers. Such efforts swept through its venues, too. The country's dance floors were suddenly repurposed into medical training facilities and ammunition factories, coordination headquarters and volunteer centres. Ukraine: Nightlife in Resistance delves into six individual perspectives from across its club scene, uncovering from their stories the true cost of war.
Set by a beautiful river canyon in Western Ukraine, a pacifist community with unique religious beliefs, sees their peaceful way of life gradually distressed by regular floods and eventually an unexpected war.
