By now, tickets should have been sold in their thousands. Flights should have been booked, catering and press passes lined up. Film buffs the world over were expecting to crowd into cinemas in Kyiv this month to watch some of the most lauded human rights-oriented films made by Ukrainians in 2021-22.
Instead, there was a tweet.
“Because the Russian Federation has started full-scale open hostilities on the territory of Ukraine, our team has decided to postpone Docudays UA until martial law is suspended and Russian aggression on the territory of Ukraine stops.”
Docudays UA is Ukraine’s single biggest film festival, first set up in 2003 as a platform for films that promote human dignity and engage audiences with civil and whole-society issues. Over the years it snowballed, typically pulling in pre-pandemic audiences of 20,000 to 25,000.
The 2022 programme was expected to start on March 25. But the day after the four national finalists were named online on February 23, Russia invaded Ukraine. Now the event is on hiatus, organisers scattered across Europe, and the filmmakers adjusting to life and work in an active conflict zone.
The auditorium lights may be out for now, but in the interim, the focus has changed. The Docudays UA team is raising funds to support filmmakers inside Ukraine, as well as a nationwide project to collect evidence of war crimes.
One of the 2021/22 directors is now covering an aspect of the war in western Ukraine. Another’s work took on new resonance after one of his film’s key protagonists was arrested. This week, Euronews caught up with those involved.
More than just a film festival
Darya Bassel is an Odessa-born film producer, programmer and head of industry at Docudays UA who also heads up DOCU/PRO, a project to boost the development of the Ukrainian film industry.
Since its inception, Bassel told Euronews, Docudays UA was meant to create a space for discussion and to raise the level of civil activity in Ukraine, as much as showcase individual…