The Living Fire
★ 7.6 · 2015 · 77m · Documentary
“Lives begin and end, but everything goes back to the earth.” A tour-de-force of cinematography and sound design, this captivating, award-winning documentary looks at three generations of sheepherders in the Carpathian Mountains. While father and son take their flock on their annual journey through the highlands, the 82-year-old widower Vasyl reflects on his past back home. A sublime look at the cycles of life and the waning of tradition.
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Second Chance
2013 · ★ 10
Second Chance tells a story of Ukrainian orphaned children and the Canadian volunteers who spend their summers working along side them. The film follows first time volunteer and filmmaker, Adriana Luhovy, as she learns about the children and becomes witness to their strengths and resilience. Converging in Yaremche in the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine, over 500 orphaned children come together from all over the country. At first quiet and fearful, they learn to trust one another and their counsellors. By countering heartbreaking statistics - 60% of orphaned girls are trafficked within the first year of leaving the orphanage; 50% of boys end up in jail; 10% commit suicide - the volunteers are dedicated to making a difference in the lives of orphaned Ukrainian children.
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Slovo House
2017 · ★ 6
Chain-smoking artists, poets and playwrights were among the colourful array of intellectuals living in the ‘Slovo House’ in 1920s Ukraine. The communist paradise was built under Stalin's approval, but it quickly became a prison. The brutal Soviet regime spied on the inhabitants, destroying their eccentric way of life and sealing their fate. This fascinating film explores the extraordinary story of the building and its residents.
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Delta
2017 · ★ 6.3
White winter blizzard covers everything. We can rely now only on saints, on our prayers. The future has sailed away, with us left behind. Astray, we did not board the magic ship. The task at hand is simple — not to perish in the fog, not to die from the cold, not to get trapped under the ice. Not to fall in our own snares. Or are we all in one big trap anyway? Running around in a small circle, counting those who vanished.
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Myth
2018 · ★ 8
"Myth" was the callsign of Vasyl Slipak, the world-famous Ukrainian opera singer, a soloist of the Parisian National Opera, who left the big stage to become a volunteer, a warrior fighting in the East of Ukraine. The Hero of Ukraine, the Knight of the Order "Golden Star" and the Order "For Courage", Vasyl Slipak gave his life, defending Ukraine. This documentary is a real story of heroism and self-sacrifice, which makes us think over our own lives.
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Carpatia
2004 · ★ 6.3
This mountain region that reaches across several countries in Eastern Europe is the home to gold diggers, wizards, cow herders and old Hassids.
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Breaking Point: The War for Democracy in Ukraine
2017 · ★ 7.4
The film looks at people transformed by a democratic revolution, who give up their normal lives to fight a Russian invasion, in a war which has killed 10,000 and displaced 1.9 million Ukrainians.
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Chernobyl.3828
2011
Military people call such places "FRONTLINE", liquidators who worked at the Chernobyl nuclear station called it "ROOF COATING". It was the most contaminated, and therefore the most dangerous, place in the zone. The remains of the roof coating of the 4th reactor. The operation on decontaminating the roof lasted more than five months. We will tell about only two days. About the most important two days in the life of an explorer - dosimetrist Valeriy Starodumov. He participated in this operation until it was over. He himself came out to the roof and led people there. He himself planted the "victory banner" at the level of 75 meters, as the signal for the zone: the roof coating has been decontaminated! Now, 25 years later, Valeriy Starodumov comes back to the zone. Now Chernobyl is a tourist object. But not for him...
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All Things Ablaze
2014 · ★ 6.5
What does the violent heart of revolution feel like? As the anger and hatred glow white hot is there a language its players use to speak to one another? And what becomes of the gun toting authorities when their fiefdom is destroyed, nobody is any longer afraid, and all things are ablaze? Just some of the questions addressed in this visceral documentary from Maidan square in the violent Ukrainian winter of 2013-14.
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The Distant Barking of Dogs
2017 · ★ 7.6
Hnutove, Donbass, eastern Ukraine, 2015. Young Oleg lives in a war zone where anti-aircraft gunshots and missile attacks often resonate dangerously near. Although many inhabitants have already left this dangerous area, he remains with his grandmother, who has cared for him since his mother's death, because they have nowhere to go. They are just waiting for the war to end.
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The Nightingale Sings
2019 · ★ 8.5
The movie explores the origin of the Ukrainian language and persecution of those who defended its authenticity. Using examples of other countries, creators of the film prove that a nation cannot exist without a language.
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Rain Project
2017
Armed with his brushes, the mural painter Gamlet Zinkivsky roams the streets of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, 20 km from the front line. The artist's initiative does not go unnoticed.
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