Ukrainian film history: the past, the present, and an uncertain future

SPEAKERS: Daria Badlor, Ivan Kozlenko, Yuliia Kovalenko
MODERATOR: Barbara Wurm

Daria Badior, Yuliia Kovalenko, and Ivan Kozlenko discuss the role and state of Ukrainian cinema in the midst of the Russian invasion, its recent international success, and issues in domestic distribution. They explore historic and current developments within the Ukrainian film industry and its institutions, including funding structures and production cultures, and offer their perspective on the future of Ukrainian cinema.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Daria Badior is a freelance critic, editor, and journalist from Ukraine. Her articles have appeared in Der Tagesspiegel, The Independent, and Dvutygodnik, among others. She is a co-curator of the Kyiv Critics' Week film festival, as well as a co-founder of Coalition for Culture, an organisation that analyses cultural policy in Ukraine. In 2018 she co-founded the Union of Ukrainian Film Critics, which honours Ukrainian filmmakers with the Kinokolo Award.

Ivan Kozlenko is a film scholar and cultural manager, as well as the founder of the Mute Nights Festival (2010–2022) in Odesa. As the former director of Ukraine’s largest film archive – the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Center in Kyiv – during his 10-year tenure he succeeded in transforming the former film developing factory into a flourishing cultural centre offering a wide range of film, theatre, and educational programming. In addition, he headed the national film restoration program until 2014 and brought about screenings revisiting restored Ukrainian films at national and international film festivals.

Yuliia Kovalenko holds a PhD in cultural studies and works as a film critic and programmer at Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Kyiv. She previously curated the special programme of Ukrainian art cinema titled We Are Here in Odesa. In 2022, alongside Victoria Leshchenko, Yuliia co-founded the Sloїk Film Atelier, an independent Ukrainian film curators’ union that creates space for and promotes underrepresented voices on the international scene. In addition, she is a member of the Ukrainian Film Critics Union and the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR:

Barbara Wurm is a cultural researcher, author, curator, and film critic, originally from Vienna. Since 2011, she has been a research associate in the section for East Slavic Literatures and Cultures at Berlin’s Humboldt University. In addition, she programmes for a variety of film festivals, including the Berlinale, where she has been chosen to take over direction of the Forum section starting in August 2023. She has published widely on the topic of post-Soviet film, as well as on the work of filmmaker Dziga Vertov.