7th Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin (2026)

The fourth salon event of Ukrainian Institute is dedicated to the work of Sofia Yablonska, a Ukrainian writer, photographer, and traveller. In the 1930s, Yablonska travelled through Africa, Southeast Asia, Oceania, French Polynesia, New Zealand and Australia, working as a documentarian. Her archive contains a small yet remarkable collection of images: over 2,000 negatives and up to four hours of newsreel footage. During the evening, Veronika Homenyk will present rare footage from Yablonska's films and speak about the themes she captured during her travels.

Twenty-year-old Vitaly leaves his mother and sister in Ukraine dreaming of a new student life in Munich. On February 24, 2022, that dream is shattered with two harsh realities: the international political situation and that of his family.

Through individual stories, the documentary offers an intimate glimpse into the human consequences of the occupation and the challenges faced by those who refuse to remain silent.

Helena Maksyom's personal record of the war in Ukraine, filmed over more than a thousand days. When the invasion began, she was a filmmaker with no experience of combat. She volunteered, learned to treat the wounded, learned to fight, and, over time, became an officer leading others through the same fire that first consumed her.

This short film programme dives into the dark side of Ukrainian animation. Always experimenting with form and genre, Ukrainian animation artists drew inspiration from folklore, everyday reality and the European avant-garde. The result is a grotesque...

Once a long ago the father of Ostap left a village and came on earnings to Donbas. The lined up a shanty put beginning to miner's settlement of Sobacheevka. Ostap went on the way of father, thirty years of bending a back on the owner of mine. And when a father was driven out from work, Ostap understood that it is senseless to blame in the troubles only master.

Filmed during one night in July 2025, the film creates a collective portrait of war-torn Ukraine. Between fear and exhaustion, moments of joy and scenes of the ordinary day, we witness the resilience of a nation gripped by uncertainty.

A documentary portrait of Andriy Kuzmenko (Kuzma), frontman of the Ukrainian band Skryabin. Through never-before-seen archival footage, the film reveals the restless spirit behind one of Ukraine's most beloved cultural icons.

These are captured moments from the life of a Ukrainian industrial giant from the East, which no longer exists due to the Russian offensive. A story of heroic energy workers at the last operating power plant in eastern Ukraine, only 10 km from the frontline. Under constant shelling, they risk their lives to keep the lights on until the plant's destruction and forced evacuation, echoing historical parallels from 1941.

When Island of Love first aired on television in 1995, it largely escaped viewers' attention because it was broadcast after midnight — and not without reason: it was the first Ukrainian erotic television series. Each of its ten episodes adapts a work of classic Ukrainian literature. Screened here in cooperation with Takflix is the third episode, 'Nature', based on the story by Olha Kobylianska: Sofia strives to be independent of both her parents and men — but what is the price of such independence in the society of her time?

The film consists of several interwoven stories and tells of different forms of the relationship between mothers and children – from childhood to adulthood.

These films follow uncertain passages across physical, emotional, and temporal distances: a man chooses to remain in his threatened hometown; a son waits for news from his mother in occupied territory; a child attempts to return home through the mechanical body of a robotic dog; and a granddaughter reaches across decades to reconnect with a family history shaped by displacement and war.

A rock speaks, an invisible worker dances herself into view, a filmmaker confronts the people he has turned into cinema, and wildlife inhabits the toxic remains of Soviet industry. Moving between animation, documentary, essay, and performance, these films descend underground — into buried histories, hidden lives, and damaged landscapes. Between destruction and renewal, they reveal life reorganizing itself within the ruins.

Set by a beautiful river canyon in Western Ukraine, a pacifist community with unique religious beliefs, sees their peaceful way of life gradually distressed by regular floods and eventually an unexpected war.

Despite the deep traces of trauma caused by sexual violence and torture resulting from Russian aggression, Ukrainian women survivors are uniting to break stigma and silence, transforming their testimonies into a powerful form of resistance

Explores the life and legacy of renowned woodcut artist Jacques Hnizdovsky through the perspective of his cat, Jérôme. The 70-minute film traces the artist's journey from European displaced persons camps to international acclaim in New York while reflecting on identity and displacement.

A rock speaks, an invisible worker dances herself into view, a filmmaker confronts the people he has turned into cinema, and wildlife inhabits the toxic remains of Soviet industry. Moving between animation, documentary, essay, and performance, these films descend underground—into buried histories, hidden lives, and damaged landscapes. Between destruction and renewal, they reveal life reorganizing itself within the ruins.

Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin 2026: Non-competition short film programme. A fresh mix of Ukrainian short films that find humour, absurdity, and tenderness in unexpected places. Unconventional, funny, and eccentric, these films are united by talent...

Dmytro Dokunov, a Ukrainian cinematographer, is deployed in a combat unit to face the Russian invasion with his mobile camera always recording.