Film Archive

Filmstill Photophobia

Photophobia

Photophobia
Ivan Ostrochovský, Pavol Pekarčík
Panorama: Central and Eastern Europe 2023
Documentary Film
Slovakia,
Czech Republic,
Ukraine
2023
71 minutes
Ukrainian,
Russian
Subtitles: 
English

12-year-old Nikita and his family have been staying in an underground station in Kharkiv for weeks. The place promises protection from Russian attacks, but there is not much distraction down here. The glaring lights and provisionally furnished carriages create a surreal to dreary atmosphere, pets roam the aisles, an aging musician plays songs on his guitar.

Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarčík condense the first months of the war in Ukraine into an oppressive but not hopeless narrative, because the station is also a place of encounters. Niki soon meets Vika, who is his age and who coaxes the lethargic boy out of his shell. Together they roam the underworld, but while Vika is permitted to go to the surface at least once in a while, Niki’s radius of movement ends at the stairs on which sunlight falls occasionally. And yet an outside exists which the two directors make visible by Super 8 shots scattered in between. They show a damaged Kharkiv: destroyed vehicles, a charred bed, provisionally protected monuments. “Photophobia” is a hybrid, introspective film that manages to find something like tender romance in an unreal situation.

Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Ivan Ostrochovský, Pavol Pekarčík
Script
Marek Leščák, Ivan Ostrochovský, Pavol Pekarčík
Cinematographer
Ivan Ostrochovský, Pavol Pekarčík
Editor
Ivan Ostrochovský, Pavol Pekarčík, Martin Piga
Producer
Ivan Ostrochovský, Albert Malinovský, Katarína Tomková, Tomáš Michálek, Kristýna Michálek Květová
Co-Producer
Helena Osvaldová, Denis Ivanov, Jakub Mahler, Pavol Pekarčík
Sound
Dušan Kozák, Jakub Jurásek
Sound Design
Jakub Jurásek
Score
Roman Kurhan, Michal Novinski
World Sales
Michaela Čajková
Nominated for: MDR Film Prize, Leipziger Ring
Filmstill Smoke of the Fire

Smoke of the Fire

O fumo do fogo
Daryna Mamaisur
Panorama: Central and Eastern Europe 2023
Documentary Film
Portugal,
Ukraine,
Belgium,
Hungary
2023
22 minutes
Portuguese (Portugal),
Ukrainian
Subtitles: 
English

Learning a foreign language is like creating another self. How can you speak it without losing your own sound, without dissolving completely in it – and still be heard and noticed? This film is a charming and intellectually fastidious attempt to navigate the complexities of language, identity and trauma.

To do this, the filmmaker resorts to her own biography. Because Russia invaded Ukraine when Daryna Mamaisur, who comes from Kyiv, was in Portugal for a Doc Nomads graduate course. Home and the search for it became the defining factors of this work, as well as the traumatic situation of only being able to “witness” the difficult situation from a distance. She, the Ukrainian in Portugal, learns Portuguese. She lets the new words for “war,” “explosion” and “attack” roll off her tongue. She compares them with the soft, intimate sound of her native language, with the sound of Kyiv. Friends send audio and visual recordings from Ukraine which, combined with animations, become a multilayered essay and finally a testimony – for the resilience of language and culture, no matter where they are spoken and lived, and not least for the power of the artistic documentary, which can make speech and sound possible.

Victoria Leshchenko

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Daryna Mamaisur
Cinematographer
Shaheen Ahmed, Daryna Mamaisur, Svitlana Vostrikova
Editor
Daryna Mamaisur
Producer
Frederik Nicolai, Daryna Mamaisur
Sound
Ghada Fikri, Juliette Menthonnex, Tetiana Usova
Sound Design
Anna Khvyl
World Sales
Valentina Zalevska
Filmstill Three Windows on South West

Three Windows on South West

Three Windows on South West
Mariia Ponomarova
International Competition Documentary Film 2023
Documentary Film
Ukraine,
Netherlands
2023
8 minutes
Ukrainian,
Russian
Subtitles: 
English

In 2002, the filmmaker moved into an apartment on the 15th floor of a Kyiv high-rise. She was twelve at the time. Today, from the safe distance of another country, she talks to people who remember the flat and the time spent together. Coming-of-Age, the love of cinema, a sense of community and the erotic charge of individual moments combine to create an image of missing home and intimacy. With every memory, we zoom a little out of the still image on screen: three windows facing southwest, a balcony facing southeast, a rooftop protected from view, a high-rise panorama. The warm and personal gaze at the sky and houses of Kyiv is mirrored in the cold attentiveness of international war reporting.

Jan Künemund

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Mariia Ponomarova
Script
Mariia Ponomarova
Editor
Mariia Ponomarova
Producer
Mariia Ponomarova
Sound Design
Sergio González Cuervo
World Sales
Lucila Riggio
-
Oleksii Isakov
Doc Alliance Award 2023
Filmstill waking up in silence
waking up in silence
Mila Zhluktenko, Daniel Asadi Faezi
Once German barracks, now accommodation for refugees: Ukrainian children practice a new language, explore strange rooms. A shimmering summer moment between leaving and arriving.
Filmstill waking up in silence

waking up in silence

waking up in silence
Mila Zhluktenko, Daniel Asadi Faezi
Doc Alliance Award 2023
Documentary Film
Germany,
Ukraine
2023
17 minutes
Ukrainian,
English,
Russian
Subtitles: 
English

The calls of the swifts fill the air. A sound that is the epitome of summer. The sun shines down on a chunky building. Surrounded by this shimmering and seemingly carefree atmosphere, children practice German vocabulary, explore empty rooms, and draw with chalk on the ground in front of the house. But not playground designs like hopscotch. Again and again, they write on the curb: “Putin, stop killing people.”

A former Wehrmacht barracks, later used by the U.S. army, this bright yellow complex now serves as accommodation for refugees from Ukraine. The directing duo’s poetic film captures an instant in the lives of these youngsters: a short and yet decisive moment between two worlds, one of them already left behind, not quite arrived yet in the other and a vague future in sight.

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Mila Zhluktenko, Daniel Asadi Faezi
Script
Mila Zhluktenko, Daniel Asadi Faezi
Cinematographer
Tobias Blickle
Editor
Mila Zhluktenko, Daniel Asadi Faezi
Producer
Mila Zhluktenko, Daniel Asadi Faezi
Co-Producer
Andrii Kotliar
Sound
Kristina Kilian
Sound Design
Daniel Asadi Faezi, Andrew Mottl
Score
Anton Baibakov
World Sales
Wouter Jansen