Ukrainian Film Festival

action of the film takes place in the Donbass, a region of Eastern Ukraine, occupied by various criminal gangs. The fighting is going on between the Ukrainian regular army, supported by volunteers, and separatist gangs, supported by Russian troops. It is a hybrid war, happening alongside an open armed conflict, accompanied by killings and robberies on a mass scale, and a gradual degradation of the civilian population. There is fear, deception, hatred and violence everywhere. The society is collapsing, and death and deadly silence lie upon the place. The state of war reaches its climax. The situations and circumstances, which seem to be absurd, grotesque, even comic, and almost impossible to imagine, do happen in real life. Sometimes, the participants of the events fail to believe that this is happening to them for real. And yet – these events do happen for real. They happen because the iron logic of the underworld, which affected all those generations born and bred in the catastrophe, that was the USSR, dictates its own rules. In my opinion, the war taking place right now is similar to the one fought 70 years ago – at once a patriotic and a civil war." (Sergei Loznitsa, director)
Won the Best Director Prize in the Un Certain Regard Section of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. 
30-minute intermission
7:00pm - Breaking Point: The War for Democracy in Ukraine: is an intimate look at the war and revolution in Ukraine through the eyes of ordinary people who risked their lives to create a more democratic, equitable, and independent country. Our principal characters are a children's theater director, a doctor, a rabbi, a TV journalist, an investigative reporter, and a lawyer turned medic and her soldier husband. Their lives were transformed by the tumultuous, three-month revolution on the Maidan, which ended in the death of 123 protesters and the flight of corrupt President Viktor Yanukovych. When Russia retaliated by annexing Crimea and invading eastern Ukraine, our subjects went to war to defend and remake their country. Our film depicts this intense and on-going struggle, which has so far killed 10,000 Ukrainians and displaced 1.9 million refugees. BREAKING POINT is the dramatic and inspiring portrait of people willing to give up their private, normal lives to unite in a collective effort to bring the rule of law and democracy to their country. Their battle to wrest power from the autocrats and plutocrats who control their governments is a struggle that is being waged around the world, from the Mideast to America. The outcome affects not only the future of Ukraine, but the future of democracy throughout the world. (IMDb)
Nominated for Social Justice Award at the 2017 Santa Barbara International Film Festival. 
Saturday, September 28th (doors open at 3:30pm):
4:00pm - The Guide: Early 1930s. Peter is a ten-year-old boy in the midst of turbulent Soviet Ukraine. His father, an American engineer, is killed for obtaining secret documents about the repressions, which now are hidden in Peter's book. The boy flees from the police with a blind kobzar (Ukrainian folk minstrel), Ivan Kocherga. Ivan does everything to help his young guide to grow up and survive with a kind and clear soul that will not be hardened by what his eyes have seen. He tells his young guide elaborate stories that make him believe there can be a different reality from what he sees around him. We are challenged to admit the blind kobzar may see the world with greater clarity than those with perfect eyes. (IMDb) 
Won the Best Acting (Stanislav Boklan) and Cinematography (Sergey Mikhalchuk) Awards at the Odessa International Film Festival.
30-minute intermission
6:45pm - Ukrainian Sheriffs: There is often a lack of policemen in rural Ukrainian communities. The citizens of Stara Zburievka village have found a solution to this local problem. They chose two local men - the smartest and the strongest - to take care of the public order. Villagers give them power, a car, and shiny tokens and name them "Sheriffs". Sometimes wild and violent, but at other times awkward and funny, the Sheriffs' actions, according to the village community, are always fair. However, the recent political events taking place in Ukraine have changed the situation in Stara Zburievka village. Will the Sheriffs' activities, which started as a protest to the existing corrupted system, be able to cope with the new, complex and revolutionary transition? The UKRAINIAN SHERIFFS film is a kind, sometimes funny, but sometimes shocking story about average Ukrainians who take action and build their own, let's say idealistic, country model combining wildness and kindness, immorality and humanity. It is a film that by telling a story about one village, tells a story about the whole country.(IMDb)
Won the Jury Award in the Feature-Length Documentary section of the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival.
These movies are presented in Ukrainian and Russian, with English subtitles.
Any unsold seats will be available for free to current University of Pittsburgh students who present a valid student ID at the door.