Directed by Olesya Morgunets-Isaenko • 2022 • Ukraine

Set against a backdrop of occupation and dispossession, Olesya Morgunets-Isaenko’s seasonal wartime melodrama is a heartbreaking but inspiring insight into Ukraine’s troubled history between empires. In the town of Stanyslaviv (now Ivano-Frankivsk), three families cohabit a single house: one Ukrainian, one Polish, one Jewish. Brought together by their shared love of music, these innocent bystanders are torn apart first by the Soviet annexation of the region, and then by Nazi occupation. Running through the film as a hopeful leitmotif is the famous titular Christmas carol – Shchedryk in Ukrainian – with its message of unity and peace.

CAROL OF THE BELLS • ЩЕДРИК
Directed by Olesya Morgunets-Isaenko
Written by Ksenia Zastavka
Cinematography by Eugeniy Kirey
Music by Hossein Mirzagholi
Starring: Miroslaw Haniszewski, Janina Rudenska, Andrey Mostrenko

In Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian with English subtitles