Ukrainian Film Forum

Join us at the Ukrainian Institute of America on Sunday, February 23, 2025, as we commemorate the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine through the power of film. This special screening series will feature a selection of feature films and documentaries, offering profound insights into Ukraine’s history and culture.

These screenings are free and open to the public, but advance registration is encouraged. Join us for an afternoon of thought-provoking cinema and meaningful reflection.

Concert Hall: 

1:00 PM: Porcelain War
3:00 PM: Soldiers of Song
5:00 PM: Intercepted
7:00 PM: The Battle for Kyiv

Library: 

12:00 PM: National Museum
1:45 PM: La Palisiada
3:45 PM: Da Vinci
5:15 PM: Ukraine, the Last War
7:15 PM: Bucha

Concert Hall Film Schedule: 

1:00 PM: Porcelain War

Now an Academy Award®️ nominee and winner of the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary, Porcelain War is a powerful testament to the resiliency of the human spirit. Amid roaring jets, Ukrainian artists Slava, Anya, and Andrey defiantly find beauty amidst destruction. With art, cameras, and for the first time, guns, they demonstrate that while fear may intimidate, it cannot extinguish their passion for life. 

3:00 PM: Soldiers of Song

Ukrainian musicians of all genres, from metal to opera, transform their passion for music into devotion to their country in this moving documentary. Beginning on the very first day of the Russian invasion, Soldiers of Song documents how the lives of its cast of Ukrainian musicians have irrevocably changed and how they use their musical talents to support themselves and their communities. 

5:00 PM: Intercepted

After the February 2022 invasion, the Security Service of Ukraine released intercepted phone calls from Russian soldiers to their families — sharing their innermost fears, contempt for Ukrainians, and hopes for a swift victory; while blithely detailing atrocities they perpetrate and goods they pillage. In INTERCEPTED, Ukrainian-Canadian filmmaker Oksana Karpovych juxtaposes these intimate conversations with eerie images of deserted, war-torn Ukrainian homes and villages, shot just behind the front lines. Absent graphic imagery, Karpovych evokes a vivid, haunting tableaux of war, and the psychological disconnect between oppressors and the lives they’ve destroyed. 

7:00 PM: The Battle for Kyiv

Filmed in Kyiv during the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, The Battle For Kyiv follows the story of Ukraine’s youngest parliamentarian Sviatoslav Yurash and a group of volunteers as they take up arms to repel the invaders. Shot on the ground in Kyiv by British-Lebanese journalist Oz Katerji, this intimate documentary bears witness to ordinary citizens transformed into defenders of their homeland. Katerji, a veteran war correspondent whose work has appeared in Foreign Policy Magazine, NBC News, Newsweek, and VICE, brings his years of frontline experience to this powerful directorial debut. Currently based in Kyiv and a member of the Foreign Press Association in London, Katerji also co-hosts the “This Is Not A Drill” podcast. Join us for the New York City premiere of this remarkable film of courage and resistance. 

Library Film Schedule: 

12:00 PM: National Museum

“Museum” is a portrait of the National Art Museum of Ukraine, the gray neoclassical building that stores, preserves and exhibits Ukrainian art and Ukrainian history as well. For half a year filmmakers observed and documented the inner life of the museum – from installation and subsequent removal of the exhibition of the XVII century icons from the communist demolished monastery to the exhibition of Alexander Bogomazov, the unknown to the world genius of Ukrainian avant-garde. The narrative arc of the film goes from the Ukrainian Baroque to the Ukrainian avant-garde and echoes both the story of the Ukrainian art and the history of Ukraine.

1:45 PM: La Palisiada

Ukraine, 1996. Five months before the moratorium on capital punishment, two old friends, a police detective and a forensic psychiatrist, investigate a murder of their colleague. Long time ago, both of them were in love with the widow of the deceased. Immersed in the complicated case and long forgotten memories, they create a future where their children have to live, inheriting unrealized aspirations of their parents. La Palisiada is a 2023 crime drama neo-noir film, marking the directorial debut of Philip Sotnychenko, who also wrote and edited the film.

3:45 PM: Da Vinci

This is the story of the outstanding Ukrainian warrior and freedom fighter Dmytro Kotsyubailo, who took part in revolution on the Maidan (Kyiv) as an 18-year-old boy, then went to the front to defend the country from the Russians. The 2024 documentary by Volodymyr Sidko marks his fifth directorial work. 

5:15 PM: War and Peace (The Last War)

This documentary is a study of how Russian culture hides militarism and imperial conquest, how Russian culture was and remains a special operation to cover up Russia’s crimes, and how the myth of the “Russian soul” fascinated the West and still works in favor of the aggressor.

7:15 PM: Bucha

BUCHA is a feature drama film based on actual events in Bucha, Vorzel, and Hostomel (Kyiv region) during the Russian occupation in the first months of the war in February-March 2022. The main character is a foreigner who decided to fight against Russia’s evil aggression in Ukraine, a country that became his home. The film tells about the rescue of local residents by Konstantin Gudauskas, a citizen of Kazakhstan who received asylum in Ukraine and lived in Bucha. When the Russian invasion began, he was allowed to cross into the territory occupied by Russian troops because of his Kazakh passport. Once there, he was able to extract Ukrainian civilians out of the occupied territory into safety. Konstantin not only saved people, but also became an eyewitness to all the horrors of war and occupation.