Ukrainian Cinema Takes Center Stage at Berlinale 2024: Intent.Insight from Ivan Kozlenko

The 75th Berlin International Film Festival takes place from February 13 to 23. It is considered one of the most prestigious film festivals in Europe and the world. This year, Todd Haynes, director of the feature films Carol, I'm Not There and Far From Heaven, is the chairman of the main competition jury.

The main competition program features 19 films:

1. "Ari, dir. by Leonor Serrai, France, Belgium;
2. "Blue Moon, dir. by Richard Linklater, USA, Ireland;
3. "The Safe House, dir. by Lionel Beyer, Switzerland, Luxembourg, France;
4. "Dreams, dir. by Michel Franco, Mexico;
5. "Drømmer, dir. by Dag Johan Heugerud, Norway;
6. "What Does that Nature Say to You, dir. by Hong Sang-su, South Korea;
7. "Hot Milk, dir. by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, UK;
8. "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, dir. by Mary Bronstein, USA;
9. "Continental '25, dir. by Radu Jude, Romania;
10. "The Message, dir. by Ivan Fund, Argentina, Spain;
11. "Mother's baby, dir. Johanna Moder, Austria, Switzerland, Germany;
12. "Reflection in a Dead Diamond, dir. by Hélène Katté, Bruno Forzani;
13. "Living the Land, dir. Meng Huo, China;
14. "Timestamp, dir. by Kateryna Hornostai, Ukraine, Luxembourg, the Netherlands;
15. "The Ice Tower, dir. Lucille Hadzihalilovic, France, Germany;
16. "The Blue Trail, dir. by Gabriel Mascro, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, the Netherlands;
17. "What Marielle Knows, dir. by Friedrich Hambalek, Germany;
18. "Girls on Wire, dir. Vivian Cui, China;
19. "Yunan, dir. by Amir Faher Eldin, Germany, Canada, Italy, Palestine, Qatar, Jordan, Saudi Arabia.

For the first time in almost 39 years, a film by a Ukrainian director entered the main competition of the Berlin Film Festival. In 1997, it was Kira Muratova 's Three Stories. "Kateryna Hornostai's The Time Tape is about teachers and students who continue to teach and study during the war in the de-occupied and frontline territories.

The documentary will compete for the Berlinale's top award, the Golden Bear. The film will show school life in Ochakiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Cherkasy, Kharkiv, Borodyanka and Bucha. The most tragic episode of the film is a funeral in the town of Romny in Sumy region - two days before, the school was destroyed by a direct hit from a Russian drone, which took the lives of the school's principal, deputy principal, librarian and secretary.

"Special Operation by Ukrainian filmmaker Oleksiy Radynsky tells the story of the occupation of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine by Russian troops in February 2022. This documentary, based on CCTV footage, was made possible by the efforts of anonymous Chornobyl NPP employees who risked their lives to keep the footage during the occupation.

"Vitaliy Mansky's Time of Approach was created in co-production between Ukraine, Latvia and the Czech Republic. The events of this documentary take place in western Ukraine. Over the course of one year, the director follows the life cycle of social rites of passage and everyday rituals where death is a daily routine.

" Eva Neumann 's When Lightning Flashes Over the Sea will be screened on February 15 at the Forum panel of the Berlin Film Festival. In the documentary, the director talks to people in war-torn Odesa who are trying to continue their lives and find meaning. According to Neumann, it was important for her to document people's dreams. "Especially in difficult times, in order to sustain yourself, you have to keep the ability to dream and see something other than the so-called reality, because otherwise you are just a product of circumstances." Earlier, Eva Neiman made a movie about the Odesa market called Privoz.

"The Day of Peter Gujar is a chamber biopic directed by Ira Sachs about a star of the New York underground in the 1970s. A photographer close to Warhol's Factory and an openly gay man, Gujar was born into a Ukrainian family in America and lived for a third of his life in what is still called the Ukrainian Village in Manhattan. Last year, the Ukrainian Museum of New York hosted an exhibition of Gujar's work. The film will compete for the festival's main queer award, the Teddy Award.

The music biopic Bob Dylan: A Complete Stranger is based on the book "Dylan Goes Electric!" 2014 by American folk guitarist and music journalist Elijah Wald, covers the events from 1961 to 1965 and tells the story of the formation of the future rock legend. The character of Bob Dylan is portrayed by Timothée Chalamet, known for the Dune dilogy, the LGBT drama Call Me By Your Name, the horror movie Whole and Complete, the black comedy Don't Look Up, and the musical fantasy Wonka.

The film tells the story of a 19-year-old boy, Dylan (the pseudonym of Robert Zimmerman, who comes from a Jewish family in Minnesota, his grandparents emigrated to the United States from Odesa), who comes to New York to meet his seriously ill idol, folk musician Woody Guthrie. Starting with a repertoire accompanied only by an acoustic guitar and harmonica, Dylan realizes that he is cramped within this genre. The young man wants to experiment faster than his environment and the public are ready to accept.

Dylan himself has a dozen Grammys, Oscars and Golden Globes to his credit. In addition, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize "for his outstanding influence on popular music and American culture through lyric compositions of exceptional poetic power" and the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature for "creating new poetic expressions in the American song tradition" - he is the only musician to receive this honor.

This year's 16th Odesa International Film Festival (OIFF) will take place from September 24 to October 4. Like last year, the event will take place in Kyiv. The main competition programs of the festival will be the National Ukrainian Program and the International European Program. The festival will also include Pitchings of the Film Industry Office section and special non-competitive screenings. Applications for participation in the competition programs opened on January 22 and will last until June 1.