Ukraine Industry Strikes Defiant Note in Berlin Two Years After Russian Invasion: ‘War Is Our Reality. It Is Not Our Identity’

The Russian invasion of Ukraine will mark its second somber anniversary next week, though in recent months the conflict has been pushed from the headlines in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. But with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy arriving in the German capital on Friday in an effort to shore up flagging European support for his country’s defense, Ukrainian film professionals at the Berlin Film Festival are determined not to quietly disappear from the global stage.

Amid red carpet protests over the conflict in Gaza and continued controversy over Berlinale leadership’s fumbling response to the far-right AfD party’s opening-night invitation, festivalgoers got a grim reminder that the Ukraine war drags on when an air raid siren from jury member Oksana Zabuzhko’s phone interrupted Thursday’s jury press conference — a signal, she explained, that the latest Russian missile attack on Ukraine had ended.

As the international industry’s first major confab of 2024 kicks off this week, Ukrainian film professionals remain steadfast and defiant despite the physical, emotional and economic toll of the war with Russia. At the European Film Market, which takes place from Feb. 15-21, they are on a mission “to tell the world who we are and what we can do,” says Victoria Yarmoshcuk, CEO of production powerhouse Film.UA, insisting: “We never asked for help. We just want to be heard.”

Three Ukrainian feature films will be screening at this year’s Berlin Film Festival: Svitlana Lishchynska’s “A Bit of a Stranger,” premiering in the Panorama Dokumente section, as well as Oksana Karpovych’s “Intercepted” and Roman Bondarchuk’s “The Editorial Office,” both playing in Forum.

Meanwhile, one year after Sean Penn used Berlin as a launching pad for his Volodymyr Zelenskyy doc “Superpower,” another U.S. filmmaker, Abel Ferrara, will be unveiling his own Ukraine war documentary, “Turn in the Wound,” as part of the Berlinale Special lineup, in which the director attempts to answer urgent questions at the heart of the current conflict. “Where does this kind of evil come from? Where does this kind of violence come from?” Ferrara asks.

Over at the EFM, an industry day dedicated to Ukraine is slated for Feb. 17, which will include a presentation of 10 works-in-progress, while a pair of Ukrainian projects will take part in the Berlinale Co-Production Market: Kateryna Gornostai’s sophomore feature “Antonivka,” a family drama set after the war’s conclusion, and “Screaming Girl,” by Antonio Lukich, a dramatic comedy about a Ukrainian actor looking for a fresh start in Ireland.

Lukich, whose last film, “Luxembourg, Luxembourg,” played at the Venice Film Festival, says he’s heartened by the ongoing solidarity shown to the Ukrainian industry by partners across the continent. “I’m proud that I’m a part of this European society of filmmakers who really stand for something, that unites more than divides,” he says.

A show of international support

International support has been crucial to shoring up the depleted Ukrainian biz. Public financing has been entirely diverted to the war effort, hampering domestic production and complicating co-production possibilities. Amid wavering morale, “the main challenge now is to keep the spirit of the team [high],” says Daria Leygonie-Fialko, founder of the TV production company SPACE and co-founder of the Organization of Ukrainian Producers (OUP).

Leygonie-Fialko’s Kyiv-based production outfit has nevertheless managed to keep cameras rolling throughout the war, producing 250 episodes of its top three shows in 2023. Its two latest series, the detective procedural “Bloodline” and the mystical drama “Sofia,” showcase how the company is looking to bolster its offerings with stories that can appeal not only to war-weary Ukrainians, but to foreign buyers for whom, however compassionate, a degree of fatigue may be setting in.

The market for non-fiction content from Ukraine plummeted following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, according to Igor Storchak, co-founder of the Organization of Ukrainian Producers (OUP). The producer was forced to shelve five documentary projects in advanced stages of development when his international partners pulled out, citing a shift in interest away from the two-year-old conflict.

Yet a string of recent deals offers an encouraging sign that the appetite for Ukrainian content is still robust. Dark Star Pictures acquired North American rights to the war thriller “Stay Online” and is planning a U.S. release later this year, while HBO CEE swooped in on the psychological thriller “Between Us.” Beta Film, meanwhile, closed a raft of territories on Starlight Media and Gaumont’s “In Her Car,” a drama series that will world premiere Feb. 19 during a special event in Berlin.

Meanwhile, Film.UA secured distribution across key territories for its animated feature “Mavka,” which grossed nearly $40 million at the global box office last year. The diverse slate the company is presenting to buyers at this year’s EFM, including its first horror film, “Witch of Konotop,” underscores Film.UA topper Yarmoshcuk’s conviction that the market is “just interested in good stories,” regardless of where they come from. “War is our reality,” she says, “but it is not our identity.”

Imagining life after the war

How to approach a war that has upended their daily reality remains a challenge for many Ukrainian filmmakers, who are torn between a determination not to be defined by the conflict and an obligation to document its ongoing toll. “From one side, we have to avoid talking just about the war,” says SPACE’s Leygonie-Fialko. “But at the same time, we have to continue to do that. If not [us], who will?”

once the “shock” of the Russian invasion wore off, Gornostai scrapped the project she had been developing and revisited “Antonivka,” a story about a young couple reckoning with an aging loved one’s mortality that is now set in an imagined future after the war’s conclusion.

“To simply write about the war, which has not yet ended, I had neither the strength nor the knowledge,” she says. “Therefore, I tried to imagine my idea in the conditions ‘after the war,’ thus bringing its sooner end into reality, as well as examining its already visible impact.”

Bondarchuk, whose Forum premiere “The Editorial Office” is set in Kherson on the eve of the Russian invasion, likewise added a coda to his movie — which was shot before the conflict began — that imagines the day when Ukrainian forces have emerged victorious. “We decided to move the film to the near future because I believe that films can influence reality, and this epilogue is a kind of contribution to bringing our victory closer,” he says.

The war’s impact nevertheless loomed large over the production: Editor Viktor onysko and actor Vasyl Kukharskyi were both killed in action fighting Russian forces, while leading man Dmytro Bahnenko was recently called to the frontlines.

Bondarchuk is nevertheless hopeful that Bahnenko will be in attendance on the day of the film’s world premiere. “We hope to bring about 20 people from the Ukrainian team,” he says. “All of these people now live in different countries, some even in Berlin itself, and it will be a very heartwarming opportunity for all of us to see each other for the first time in two years.”