Ukrainian Institute London, in partnership with BerthaDocHouse and Docudays UA presents People Power, a three-day celebration of Ukrainian non-fiction cinema.
Full Programme
5 April 2024 Ukrainian Sheriffs (Roman Bondarchuk, 2015)
6 April 2024 Roses. Film-Cabaret (Irena Stetsenko, 2021)
6 April 2024 Iron Butterflies (Roman Liubyi, 2023)
7 April 2024 The Hamlet Syndrome (Elwira Niewiera, Piotr Rosolow, 2022)
Ukrainian Sheriffs
5 April
Director: Roman Bondarchuk
Genre: Documentary Year: 2015 Duration: 85 min
Language: Russian with English subtitles
Welcome to Stara Zburievka, a small town at a turning point in Ukraine’s history, where local sheriffs Viktor and Volodya are trying to keep the peace.
In Stara Zburievka, on the mayor’s initiative, people chose two local men, Victor and Volodya, and gave them power to take care of the public order, as well as a car, and named them “sheriffs”. Following Viktor and Volodya on their everyday duties—involving stolen ducks and drunken neighbours—Ukrainian Sheriffs gives us a look beyond the war and the ongoing political events inside the everyday life of the villagers, foregrounding the tension between personal survival and political justice.
What was meant to be a film about a few people from the Ukrainian countryside and their everyday struggles, at the end portrays the faith of a whole nation during the turning period in its history.
Roses. Film-Cabaret
6 April
Director: Irena Stetsenko
Genre: Documentary Year: 2021 Duration: 88 min
Language: Ukrainian with English subtitles
Roses. Film-Cabaret is a tragicomic musical featuring 7 actors of the Dakh Daughters Band, living through the pivotal moment of the 2014 Maidan Revolution.
A story of civil dignity and political will, told in the language of cabaret by seven women in white makeup and black tutus.
This political cabaret draws its magic from combining joie de vivre and the horror of the devastating war—even if we don’t see it yet, its shadow is always there, darkened by the bright stage lights. This collective portrait of Dakh Daughters, shot on stage, in dressing rooms and on the road, paints a picture of being an artist under extreme conditions of pain and loss, realising that during the war, self-defence is the only natural response—in terms of art as well as motherhood.
The film shows revolution through the female gaze of the artists, which gives it a particular humane perspective, celebrating life rather than heroic deeds. The film captures the inception of what is going on in Ukraine today—incredible unity of Ukrainian people standing against the Russian assault on Ukraine, Europe, and the free world.
Iron Butterflies
6 April
Director: Roman Liubyi
Genre: Documentary Year: 2023 Duration: 84 min
Language: Ukrainian with English subtitles
On 17 July, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down by Russian forces over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
The reality of this attack, and its possible ramifications for the then-ongoing war in Donbas and the West’s relationship with Russia, was immediately denied by the Russian government and media. As voluminous evidence—including physical artefacts like the butterfly-shaped shrapnel found in the bodies of the pilots—piled up, the lies denying reality only became more outlandish and incredible.
In a world where violence can only be defended by lies, and lies only maintained by violence, Iron Butterflies presents the truth of what happened to MH17, but also what was at stake by not confronting it. Director Roman Liubyi uses a wealth of visual material and individual testimonies to craft this artful yet evidence-driven examination of a turning point in recent world history.
This act of mass murder not only destroyed so many people’s lives and the possible futures that they could have built—it contained the seeds of the future we now live in.
The Hamlet Syndrome
7 April
Directors: Elwira Niewiera, Piotr Rosolow
Genre: Documentary Year: 2022 Duration: 86 min
Language: Ukrainian with English subtitles
A few months prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, five young women and men participate in a unique stage production that attempts to relate their war experiences to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
For each of them, the stage is a platform to express their grief and trauma through the famous question ‘to be or not to be’, a dilemma that applies to their own lives. The protagonists fight against disappointment, powerlessness, and anger, trying to put their lives back in order while processing their painful past. The rehearsals for the play are combined with an intense glimpse into the characters’ lives: a powerful portrait of a generation coping with the trauma of war which now, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, is both their present and future.
