Four short stories are set along the roads of Donbass during the war. There are no safe spaces and no one can make sense of just what is going on. Even as they are trapped in the chaos, some manage to wield authority over others. But in this world, where tomorrow may never come, not everyone is defenseless and miserable. Even the most innocent victims may have their turn at taking charge.
Ihor Koltovskyi, Andrey Lelyukh, Anna Zhurakovskaya, Yuliya Matrosova, Oksana Cherkashyna, Yurii Kulinich, Oksana Voronina, Volodymyr Hurin, Ekaterina Zhdanovich, Anastasia Parshina, Maryna Klimova, Zoya Baranovska

In Russia, criticizing the war in Ukraine or Vladimir Putin’s regime has become a crime. Thousands of ordinary citizens are being arrested, tried, and imprisoned. They are called “Politzek”: political prisoners. Filmed clandestinely over the course of more than a year, Politzek gives a platform to those who, despite the fear, continue to speak out against Putin’s repressive Russia. Through the intersecting stories of a teenager sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing the government on social media, a young artist jailed for placing anti-war stickers, a human rights activist, and two theater directors facing Kafkaesque trials, the film unveils the machinery of state repression in Russia. With rare footage, broken yet unyielding voices, this is a story of silenced resistance.
2026

This documentary follows two long-lost Ukrainian friends, Arsalan and Nastya, as they reconnect in Germany after russia's full-scale invasion against Ukraine. Arsalan, an actor now in Frankfurt after time in a refugee camp, and Nastya, journalist and producer who stayed in Kyiv, reflect on the divergent paths their lives have taken due to the war. Through their conversations and therapy sessions, the film explores themes of displacement, identity, and the emotional impact of war on youth.
2025

Thi is the story of a Kyiv boy who lives his life believing that the problems of his country do not interest him. However, everything changes when he meets in a dream a Ukrainian warrior who comes to Nazar from the last century. Or maybe it was not a dream?
2023

In the early eighteenth century, foreign rule means dark times for the Hutsuls of the Carpathians. The two Dovbush brothers become opryshkos - mountain outlaws. But the two brothers become enemies - one cares only about money, the other - Oleksa - fights for his people. The Carpathians are convulsed with a wave of uprisings. The aristocracy uses its military might to try to kill Dovbush and destroy his legend. But Dovbush outwits them. The desperate lords devise a devious plan and attack the invincible outlaw's Achilles heel - his love for his childhood sweetheart, Marichka. Who will be the assassin to attack the Opryshko whose immense strength and bravery inspired folk tales? Will the lords' treacherous plan destroy the hero before he can lead his people to freedom?
2023

The battle is carried on not only at war with the aggressor. The clash of worldviews happens all around us and it never stops. The enemy is not always across the border.
2020

The owner of a large construction company struggles to get permission to build a house in a garden square. An unexpected parcel from an old friend helps him make the only right choice.
2020

A story of a man - a father and a son, a defender and a soldier, who has to deal with life's challenges not only at war but also after it's over.
2020

This is a portrait of a man, for whom the war in Eastern Ukraine has become a personal challenge. Beard is a native of the Donbas, a man of about forty-five, a family guy, an ordinary worker. Director is a young man of about twenty-six, single, a west-man, coming from the intelligentsia. This is the usual day of the ordinary military. These are events and people whom you can meet there. This is the relationship between people who have to be here and now during the war. This is not only a unique life experience but also a kind of cultural exchange between different social strata and communities. This is the birth of new, special traditions.
2020

The crew of Ukrainian NAVY minesweeper U311 "Cherkasy" is resisting seizure of the vessel by Russian army in Crimea in 2014.
2020

A story of a lonely woman, who tries in a somewhat radical way to reach out to the world, which doesn’t care for her personal needs.
2019

Happy newlyweds Ida and Jura are expecting a child. Ida suddenly finds out that the child will be special. She is unsure of how Jura will react when he learns the news, or what life with an extraordinary child will bring.
2019

The film’s story is based on the fate of the Floriculture Pavilion of the former Exhibition of Achievements of the People’s Economy, and its elderly employee Valentyna Voronina, who maintains this space, investing her own life into it, until suddenly changes come to her. After forty-five years of work, she is asked to retire. But Voronina does not agree with that, because she thinks that all the plants will die without her. Meanwhile, a group of mysterious radioesthesists find a channel of positive energy right in front of the entrance to the pavilion.
2018

A series of odd coincidences has left Lukas, an interpreter for an OSCE military checkpoint inspection tour, stranded near a small southern Ukrainian steppe town. With nowhere to turn, this city boy finds shelter at the home of a colorful local named Vova. With Vova as his guide, Lukas is confronted by a universe beyond his imagination, one in which life seems utterly detached from any identifiable structure. Fascinated by his host and his host's daughter Marushka, with whom he is rapidly falling in love, Lukas’s contempt for provincial life slowly melts away and sets him on a quest for a happiness he had never known could exist.
2018

Rokas and Inga, a couple of young Lithuanians, volunteer to drive a cargo van of humanitarian aid to Ukraine. They cross the vast snowy lands of the Donbass region, drifting into the lives of those affected by the war.
2017

The old man’s daughter married the foreigner and moved abroad. Only his neighbor Gienyk remembers his name. Others call him “Beard”. “Beard” feeds hens, smokes cheap cigarettes, goes fishing as an ordinary villager. But nobody, even Gienyk knows what’s on his mind. His daughter visits him while passing by. He’s not at home at that moment. When he comes back, he founds his daughter on the threshold, ready to leave. The old man sees off his daughter with sadness. And then takes the gun. Everything’s going to change in a moment… The Beard will disappear.
2012

Set in the 16th century, this is a story about Ukraine's Cossack warriors and their campaign to defend their lands from the advancing Polish armies.
2009

A nurse from Ukraine searches for a better life in the West, while an unemployed security guard from Austria heads East for the same reason. Both are looking for work, a new beginning, an existence, struggling to believe in themselves, to find a meaning in life...
2007

A young Jewish American man endeavors—with the help of eccentric, distant relatives—to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II—in a Ukrainian village which was ultimately razed by the Nazis.
2005

Lichter is an episodic tale from Hans-Christian Schmid about the life on the border between Germany and Poland. The film sheds light on the everyday stories of escape and desperateness.
2003
Valeri Sikorski knows from his doctors that his days are numbered because of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. He wants to make a last adventure in his life and goes to England, but first he stops in Berlin to pick up his best friend Victor. But Victor has disappeared. Now Valeri's journey turns into a search for his old friend Victor.
2000