Ukraine 7. Film Festival

November 5, 2021, 18:00
Forum cinema, 5 Legionowa Street
tickets: 18/16 PLN, available at the Forum cinema’s box office (5 Legionowa Street), Ludwik Zamenhof Centre’s box office (19 Warszawska Street) and on bilety.bok.bialystok.pl

October 25
18:15 – KLONDIKE
July 2014. Expectant parents Irka and Tolik live in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine near the Russian border, disputed territory in the early days of the Donbas war. Their nervous anticipation of their first child’s birth is violently disrupted as the vicinal crash of flight MH17 elevates the forbidding tension enveloping their village. The looming wreckage of the downed airliner and an incoming parade of mourners emphasize the surreal trauma of the moment. As Tolik’s separatist friends expect him to join their efforts, Irka’s brother is enraged by suspicions that the couple has betrayed Ukraine. Irka refuses to be evacuated even as the village gets captured by armed forces, and she tries to make peace between her husband and brother by asking them to repair their bombed house.

October 26
18:00 – CAROL OF THE BELLS
Immortalised as one of the most  scintillating and enlightening Christmas songs, ‘Carol of the Bells’ adapted from a popular Ukrainian folk melody, came to represent the spirit of brotherhood and unity all over the world. The peaceful and neighbourly existence of three families , Polish, Ukraine and Jewish, sharing a large house, musical evenings and merriment in the city of Stanislav in the years preceding and post war, is shattered by invaders, first in the Nazi then the Soviet occupation of Ukraine. Death and loss come to these families, but the healing power and joy of “Carol of the Bells” will be everlasting.

October 27
18:15 – 107 MOTHERS
Lesya has committed a crime of passion which brings her a seven-year sentence in one of Odessa’s women’s correctional facilities. She has just given birth to her first child, and now she is entering a world populated only by women: inmates, nurses and wardens, women of all ages, wives and widows, daughters, sisters, pregnant women, and women with children. If not for the colour of the uniform, it would sometimes be hard to tell who is who.

October 29
16:00 – PAMFIR
Western Ukraine, on the eve of a traditional carnival. Pamfir returns to his family after months of absence. Their love is so unconditional that when his only child starts a fire in the prayer house, Pamfir has no other choice but to reconnect with his troubled past to repair his son’s fault. He will be taken on a risky path with irreversible consequences.
18:15 – MOTHER OF APOSTLES
Motherly love has no limits. When a son is in danger, the mother does not hesitate to rush to his aid. For the sake of saving the child, she is ready to do anything. She even is ready to go through the hell of war. When Sofia finds out that a transport plane, the pilot of which is her son, was shot down, she sets off for the front line. Her journey is full of dangers. She does not know whether her son or any other member of the crew survived. She has no friends there on the unfamiliar territory, no helpers, no clear plan. There is only her willpower. But it is her will and love that help her to find people who begin to sympathize and help her, and thereby change themselves. A dangerous journey turns her from the mother of one pilot into the mother of all who need to be saved, who need the spiritual rebirth. She is ready to come for even those whom she considered an enemy.

October 30
18:00 – REFLECTION
Ukrainian surgeon Serhiy is captured by the Russian military forces in the conflict zone in Eastern Ukraine and while in captivity, he is exposed to horrifying scenes of humiliation, violence and indifference towards human life. After his release, he returns to his comfortable middle-class apartment and tries to find a purpose in life by rebuilding his relationship with his daughter and ex-wife. He learns how to be a human being again, how to be a father and help his daughter, who needs his love and support.