Doc Kyiv Fest Pitching participants announced

The authors of the film projects will present their films to a professional jury, which will be announced soon. 

Four projects are at the Development stage: 

"Leaving the Comfort Zone, dir. Serhiy Demydov, Olesya Lukyanenko
Larysa is a mother of four sons from a town in the East, an openly gay woman. She fled her home under shelling. Later, Larysa met Bako, a woman from Kazakhstan. Bako came to Ukraine to build a new life with her beloved. Petro and Volodymyr have been together for 37 years and their relationship is open. When the war started, they had a dream of an official marriage in Europe. Albina is a transgender woman who is not accepted by her colleagues at a steel plant. Albina's mother died during the war. However, she is determined to complete her transition.

"From Radvanka, dir. by Tomi Gajlinski, prod. Valeria Sochyvets, Sabina Asadova
50-year-old Zhanna is a Roma woman who works as a janitor and lives in Radvanka, a Roma settlement in the Uzhhorod district. She has two sons, neither of whom is with her. Her elder son fought in the Ukrainian army in 2014 but was forced to leave the service due to his health condition, and her younger son returned to the army after being wounded. Zhanna films her everyday life with a handheld video camera and reflects on life in Radvanka, the war in the country, and the future of her sons.
 

"Round Glasses, dir. Khrystyna Petrenko
In this documentary essay, a young man embarks on a journey from Ukraine to Germany, a country he has long admired, to present his film at a festival. However, against the backdrop of the Russian-Ukrainian war and the world's reaction to it, his idealised notions are shattered. Along the way, he undergoes a profound transformation, reassessing his views on the "best and worst countries" and overcoming his Ukrainian inferiority complex.

"Schoolboys, dir. by Denys Vorontsov, prod. Ivanna Khitsinska
In Kharkiv, three photographers from the world-famous local school of photography Vlad, Lekha and Rodion decide to document the Russian invasion of their country in their own artistic way. Between everyday life during the war, work at the front, self-doubt and jokes, each of them tries to find their own path, both personal and artistic.

Five projects are at the Work in Progress stage:

"The Hymn of Life, directed and produced by Vladyslav Stankevych
The documentary project Hymn of Life offers viewers a deep dive into the lives and stories of extraordinary people from all over Ukraine, whose journey is made through trials, discoveries and achievements, revealing their individual beliefs, fears and dreams.

"Divya, dir. by Dmytro Greshko, prod. Polina German, Hlib Lukyanets, Tasya Pugach
Divya is an observational documentary about the catastrophic impact of the Russian invasion on the Ukrainian environment and how nature resists and recovers from this aggression.

"The Running Earth, dir. Viktor Shevchenko, Valeria Sochyvets
Four guys who were forced to flee from eastern Ukraine ended up in distant Nida, Lithuania, where they started their own rock band in the basement of a temporary house. Guitarist Senia misses his grandmother and bees who remained in Ukraine. Anna, 14, from Saltivka, the hardest-hit neighbourhood in Kharkiv whose house was destroyed by a Russian missile, is preparing for her graduation waltz. The family of seven lives near the destroyed airport in the Kherson region. The children take part in football tournaments and help animals left behind by their neighbours. The walls of their home helped them survive the occupation, but life near the front line is still very dangerous.

"Language Barrier, directed and produced by Zhora Papoyan 
American missionaries are repairing houses, delivering firewood and helping the residents of the village of Posad Pokrovske in the Kherson region. During one of these repairs, the Americans cannot find common ground with the owner of the house, who is unhappy with the work. The language barrier prevents them from clearly explaining the problem to each other. A separate line of the film is formed by episodes from the lives of the locals: their attempts to dig up the house, survive the winter and... find the culprit.

"Steel Birds, dir. Artem Kolyubayev, Taras Bosak, Serhiy Storozhev, Veronika Kryzhna
"Steel Birds is a story about the strength and heroism of ordinary soldiers who found themselves face to face with war. The lives of others depended on them, and the courageous defenders of Ukraine did not fail. This is a story about brave helicopter pilots and scouts who risked their own lives to fly behind enemy lines and rescue the wounded from Azovstal under fire. This is a story about people with big hearts and one of the most unique military operations in the world, which has no analogues in the world.

The jury will select the winners in two contests, each of which will receive a cash prize of UAH 25 thousand.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the Doc Kyiv Fest audience documentary film festival on 28-30 March at the Planeta Kino cinema. 

Doc Kyiv Fest is an annual international festival of medium-length documentary films for the general public, founded by the NGO KinoFest and organised in cooperation with StarlightMedia and the Odesa International Film Festival. 

General media partner: ICTV2
Media partner: 1+1 media
Information partner: Prokino