The world is watching Ukraine right now, but film fans have been watching Ukrainian cinema for decades. The country has had a complicated, difficult history for a long time, having been brought into the Soviet Union and subjugated and starved throughout the 1930s with the infamous Holodomor man-made famines. Since then, prejudice and bias toward Ukrainians has developed amongst many far-right Russian nationalists, who treated the great Ukrainian people with disdain even when they were part of the same Soviet Union.
Ukraine has experienced some epic complications over the past decade, from their 2013-2014 revolutionary acts to the inner turmoil they face between pro-Russian separatists and (mostly) younger Ukrainians who yearn for a more European way of life. The gravitation of Ukraine (and the American influence) toward NATO and the EU has caused Russia (which generally still considers the Ukraine its own territory, like Crimea) distress, and on the night of Feb. 23, 2022, it looks as if Russian convoys and attacks have begun to enter into Ukraine from all directions. A terrible war may be beginning, and with America's difficult past wartime decisions, many people are tense.
Art can be a healing therapy, though, especially multicultural, international art. We can try to understand one another through art, and international cinema often makes this impassioned plea: "Please don't consider me 'the other;' I am just like you, and here's why." By taking a look at some of the greatest Ukrainian movies ever made, perhaps we can cultivate some empathy and support.
9 Such Beautiful People
Dmytro Moyseyev's gorgeous, quiet film, Such Beautiful People, is a simple look at the everyday lives of rural Ukrainian citizens. Taking place largely against the beautiful backdrop along the shores of the Black Sea in Crimea, the movie takes a gentle look at different neighbors and citizens of a small community and their day-to-day lives trying to find meaning outside the hustle and bustle of the big city. It's an artfully shot and slightly melancholic film which reveals the beauty in banality and the dignity in normal, working-class life, Ukrainian or anywhere else.
8 Firecrosser
In Firecrosser, writer/director Mykhailo Illienko tells the dramatic true story of a Ukrainian legend, Ivan Datsenko, who led over 200 combats against the Nazis in World War 2 before becoming decorated with the official title of "Hero of the Soviet Union" on September 18, 1943. He was eventually captured as a prisoner of war by the Americans, and the Soviets declared him dead, but the true story is so much more bizarre. Datsenko sneaked his way into Canada, fell in love with a Native woman, and joined her tribe, eventually becoming the Native chief Firecrosser in Montreal, with everyone unaware of his complicated Ukrainian past. It's a larger-than-life story, and the Ukrainian director tells it well.
7 Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom
The Netflix original Winter on Fire, directed by Evgeny Afineevsky, is a tense Academy Award-nominated documentary about the student uprising which took place in Ukraine in 2013. Using excellent interviews with activists, journalists, politicians, laborers, artists, and clergy, along with brilliant editing and music, the documentary looks at the complicated situation in Ukraine, where so many young people wanted more European integration and association with the European Union and NATO, while many politicians (and Russians) certainly did not. The Ukrainian revolution and subsequent situation came to head in 2014, and seeing what Russia has been doing of late, it seems as if it's hardly over.
6 Julia Blue
Roxy Toporowych directs the beautiful Julia Blue, about one of the aforementioned student activists. Having witnessed the chaos in Kyiv, Julia is inspired to leave home and become a photojournalist. She utilizes her passion while waiting on news from colleges by volunteering at a military hospital for recently wounded soldiers, bringing her enthusiasm and energy with her wherever she goes. Julia falls in love with a hurt (in more than one sense of the word) young man, and a gentle love blossoms between them in this touching, sad, but ultimately inspiring Ukrainian film.
5 Feathered Dreams
Feathered Dreams is a unique production. It's the first English-language Ukrainian movie, and it's also a co-production between Ukraine and Nigeria, a country which actually has the fastest growing film industry, termed Nollywood. Andrew Rozhen's film follows a young woman facing prejudice and discrimination in Ukraine as she studies medicine while dreaming of becoming a singer. Omoni Obole's performance as Sade is absolutely breathtaking, and holds this simple, gorgeously scored film together.
4 Generation Maidan
Another excellent documentary which looks at the revolutionary Ukrainian combat of 2014, Generation Maidan is a lot more uplifting and less dark than Winter on Fire, but just as brilliant. The film partially picks up where Winter on Fire left off, following the Ukrainian protestors as they battle corrupt oligarchs, businessmen, and pro-Russian separatists. Director Andrew Tkach weaves together a tapestry of moving interviews with everyone from medics, musicians, self-defense volunteers, civic activists, torture victims, and even young Ukrainian women and men directly on the front lines. The producers have made the full film available below, but be warned, the revolution can get violent and intense.
3 Hunger For Truth: The Rhea Clyman Story
An extremely painful documentary, Hunger For Truth: The Rhea Clyman Story tells the heartbreaking story of journalist Rhea Clyman, one of the few people in the world (who wasn't killed) to investigate and report on the disinformation campaign of Stalinist bureaucrats and police surrounding the intentional starvation and mass famine which killed nearly four million people in the 1930s. At just 28, Clyman drove across Eastern Ukraine, directly interviewing and writing about the man-made famine known now as Holodomor. Her information was suppressed, and Clyman was arrested; she was luckily a Canadian citizen and not Ukrainian, so she wasn't killed. It took nearly half a century for her actual reporting coming to light, and Hunger For Truth is an import film which documents what she worked so hard for.
2 The Guide
The 2014 Ukrainian drama The Guide from Oles Sanin is a tense, gritty, and incredible historical film which depicts the repression of the Ukrainian identity in the 1930s. The haunting and visually stunning film follows a boy, whose American father is killed by NKVD agents for possession of state secrets; the boy is taken in by a blind kobzar, or Ukrainian nomadic musician, who wanders about busking. Kobzars were often targeted by the USSR for being anti-party, harboring an ethnocentric romanticism which ran counter to the Stalinist ideology. The boy and the older man must traverse the difficult, cold, politically fraught landscape of Ukraine in hopes of surviving in this tense, heartbreaking film.
1 Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Also known as Wild Horses of Fire, the landmark 1965 Ukrainian film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a cinematic masterpiece from director Sergei Parajanov that acts as a modern update of the Romeo and Juliet tale to the beautiful Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine. Two young Ukrainians develop an unrequited love, since their families hate each other, in this gorgeously shot, nearly avant-garde classic that was a massive success in its home country, with seven million people buying tickets at the time. Even just making this film was a bit of a political statement; it was one of the very rare Ukrainian-language films to be produced at the Dovzhenko Film Studios in Ukraine, as even in 1965 there was major prejudice against the Ukrainians, even if they were a part of the same Soviet Union with the Russians. Even the theatrical release of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors drew violent protests and imprisonments. Let this film not be forgotten.