In the Rearview

War Documentary (2023)

Directed by Maciek Hamela.

This documentary which premiered at this year's TIFF has been touring North America, receiving 21 awards, 12 nominations and is now short listed for Best Documentary at this year's Oscars. The film's strength is in its simplicity. At the beginning of the Russian invasion, director Maciek Hamela purchased a van and started evacuating people seeking refuge from the violence. It is filmed from the passenger seat of the van and is a compilation of stories and experiences told by the passengers in the back. This will be our opening-night film.

I Work At the Cemetery

Comedy (2021)

Directed by Alexey Taranenko. This feature has received 3 awards including Winner of Best Actor 0f 2021 Ukrainian Film Critics Award Kinokolo, as well as 6 nominations. A story about a cynical 35 year old Sasha who in the attempt to escape from life, manages a firm that installs tombstones at a cemetery. Ironically, he surrounds himself with eccentric customers, bandits and a daring teenage daughter.

La Palisiada

Crime Drama (2023)

Directed by Philip Sotnychenko.

This feature received 5 awards including Best Feature Film at the Torino Film Festival, as well as 13 nominations. A crime drama about two friends, a police detective and a forensic psychiatrist, investigating a murder of their colleague. The film takes place in Ukraine 1996, and is a commentary on it's first years of independence, the post-Soviet continuum and its transition into the present.

Valeria Is Getting Married

Drama (2022)

Directed by Michal Vinik.

North American Premier at the 2022  TIFF, this feature has received 7 awards as well as 17 nominations. A story about two Ukrainian sisters that decide to marry through online arranged marriages. It is a film that opens a window into the nuances and complexity of such arrangements, as well as the precarity of the sisters' positions as both recent immigrants and the power dynamics of an arranged marriage.