Program

As part of the 7th Kyiv Critics' Week, we are presenting 4 programs: the Ukrainian retrospective Women's Role, Focus, International Retrospective and International Program. Each program will be announced separately.
Focus: Ukraine — Poland

Six premieres of recent hits of Ukrainian and Polish cinema. The curators of the festival chose three films, which best give an idea of the existing situation of Polish cinema. On the other hand, a team of film critics from Poland chose three Ukrainian films that reflect the Ukrainian film process, with its genre and auteur searches.


The Polish side is represented by the editor-in-chief of the Ekrany film magazine Milosz Stelmach, film journalist, member of FIPRESCI and the European Film Academy Marta Bałaga, as well as film critic and Assistant professor in the Center for Comparative Studies of Civilisations of the Jagiellonian University Elżbieta Olzacka.

Female Role

The program is dedicated to legendary Ukrainian actresses. All of them worked in different eras. They still remain the true personification of cinema — from its formation to the time of the Independence of Ukraine. This program is an excellent opportunity to look at their legacy, and at the same time see how the acting, female characters, and attitudes have changed over the last century. This section also provides an opportunity to look at how sociocultural stereotypes were reflected on the big screen, and how the place of women on and off the screen changed with the changing eras. The program is held jointly with the Dovzhenko Center.


Program of the international retrospective Man with a Movie Camera

Why does cinema have such an impact on us? Why do we stare at the screens and watch someone else's life, which, in the case of fiction films, someone is very diligently acting out for us? Who are these people, and what kind of magic do they create?


The six films in the program Man with a Movie Camera tell the story of those who make movies and those who watch them, from a sardonic portrait of Hollywood to a nostalgic ode to the cinema as a place of shared experiences, from a biography of a cult director who was considered a failure to a collective portrait of those whom the audience usually does not see behind the demiurge figure of the director; from the anatomy of voyeurism as something frightening to its complete commercialization. Enthusiasts, cinephiles, business people, madmen, failures, and neurotics are the people who keep us company on our joint journeys into the world of cinema. This program is about all of us. All right, Mr. DeMille, we are ready for our close-up.