Day Four of the 16th OIFF: European Premieres, Saura and Wenders Retrospectives and Special Screenings

The 16th Odesa International Film Festival is taking place in Kyiv. The fourth day presented the audience with a rich selection of premieres, retrospectives and special events.

The day began with a screening of the film “Grand Tour” by Miguel Gomes, which was included in the “Best of Europe” program.

The program continued with films from the Carlos Saura retrospective: “La prima Angélica”, “Las paredes hablan”, “Rosa Rosae. La guerra civil” and “Goya 3 de mayo”. In the “Focus on Poland” section, the audience saw the film “Silent Trees” directed by Agnieszka Zwiefka. The European competition program presented the film “Paternal Leave” by Alyssa Jung. Also within the framework of this program, the presentation of the film “The Daughter” by Yegor Olesov took place. “This is a story about the first days of the invasion. When I created this film, I wanted the foreign audience, first of all, to get a certain immersive experience, to experience these events and feel motivated to act. We shot the film exactly a year after the invasion began in Bucha, in a house that was occupied by Russian soldiers,” the director commented.

As part of the “Best of Europe”, the screening of the film “Full of Love” by Christina Rosendahl took place. The Wim Wenders retrospective that day was presented by the film “Alice in the Cities”.

The “Art of Trauma” program included the film “War on Art” by Andrzej Mienkus, who noted: “We did a lot of research in preparation for filming and documented a lot of material, so I can’t say that I knew nothing about Ukrainian art. However, during the work I was amazed – I simply could not imagine how fantastic Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian art are.”

In the “Festival of Festivals” section, the audience watched “The Ceremony” by Jack King. And in the “Gala Premieres” program, two films were presented at once: “Late Shift” by Petra Volpe and “Alpha” by Julia Ducorno.

Special attention on the fourth day was attracted by a special screening of works by MEGOGO AI FILM FEST 2025 participants. There was also a special screening of the film “In Thanks We Trust” directed by Dmytro Greshko – a film about a unique musical tour of Ukrainian military musicians of the “Cultural Forces” platform in the USA. “The idea to shoot it came when we realized that there was a lot of support among the American audience. At first, we thought it would be something like a video blog. But when we collected the material and discovered that this trip was not just about various concerts, but adventure after adventure – it became clear that it needed to be shown as a film that would serve as a mediator between American and Ukrainian society,” said Mykola Serga, a military serviceman, musician, founder of “Cultural Forces of Ukraine”.

The festival's educational program continued with important industry events. In particular, the master classes "To the FIPRESCI anniversary - 100 years of film criticism in times of war: Ukrainian optics" and "FILMAR. How can the new methods of lighting save the film budget?" were held. During the second, participants learned about modern lighting technologies and optimization of production processes. Gaffer Ihor Ivanko emphasized the social aspect of work: "In our country now there will be a lot of people with injuries, with disabilities, and among them those who will be looking for work. We must think about all these people. And if we can somehow help them - we must help them. There is a lot of work on the set. Lighting engineers are not only "iron" to drag. We can safely hire a person in a wheelchair, for example, for the position of "THC remote control" - to sit at a tablet."

The film program of the day was concluded by the screening of the documentary film "Shards of Light" by Mila Teshaeva and Markus Lenz, which was included in the National Documentary Competition Program. This documentary film is a fragile chronicle, created with great respect and love for the heroes, residents of the Bucha district, who survived the occupation.

The film director emphasized that it was especially important for her to show the film in Kyiv, in the presence of the people who became the heroes of the film. Despite the pain of war and difficulties, she wanted to demonstrate the other side: "The film is full of love, respect and questions. There are a lot of questions that this film raises."

In addition to film screenings and creative events, the fourth day of the festival continued with the Film Industry Office section, aimed at supporting and developing Ukrainian film projects and the film industry in general. The section included a business cluster of the EU program "Creative Europe", a presentation of the competition "Innovation Laboratories", a panel discussion on the distribution of European films and animation in Ukraine, as well as master classes and discussions of innovative methods of work in documentary film and animation.

Ilya Dyadyk, program director of the film company "Arthouse Traffic", spoke about all the links that an audiovisual product goes through before reaching the viewer: "There are Hollywood studios that occupy, perhaps, half of the market in all of Europe. They work differently: they all have their own representatives and they do not buy films, but transfer the rights to cinemas. The situation is different in Europe, because there are no large studios there. Producers transfer the rights to sales companies that supply products to film markets. There, independent film distributors come and negotiate the purchase of rights specifically on the territory of Ukraine."

Yulia Antipova, director of the “Zhovten” cinema, added: “The “Zhovten” cinema is currently the only cinema that is part of the Europa Cinemas association, and one of our main tasks is to support and distribute European content. Since 2017, we have participated in all events related to the distribution and support of European cinema, and since 2021 we have officially signed a contract.”

Natalia Baydan, general director of the “Planeta Kino” cinema chain, emphasized: “European cinema is very important and interesting for us, because it has its own traditions, and the Ukrainian audience watches it with pleasure. We already have a certain culture of consuming European cinema, but it still needs to be supported. It is important for us that the audience has access to interesting new films, and there are not enough halls and cinemas for this.”

Separate specialized discussions discussed the challenges, solutions and innovations of modern Ukrainian neo-documentary. In particular, they examined in detail the work with animation in documentary films. Serhiy Mogilny, the animation director, shared his experience: “Our task was to use animation to recreate the most terrible memories of the main characters. We were approached by a director who had already been rejected by several European studios, citing the fact that they did not understand the horror that is happening in Ukraine and could not meet the deadlines. We did not refuse and got down to work. Animation allowed us to recreate moments where the chronicle was lacking, as well as show sensitive content without excessive shock and create an appropriate emotional state.”

Animation supervisor Serhiy Golubchuk explained: “In our work, we relied on professional actors who reproduced movements for the camera. Therefore, we did a lot of things on the set, and not like in the traditional animation pipeline, when every pose or movement is invented by an animator.”

Executive producer Natalie ElBaba spoke about the organization of work on the film “Children on Fire”: “Two teams worked on the project: the first was an in-studio team of supervisors and leads who were responsible for their processes and suggested ideas to colleagues; the second team consisted of one person — Mark Pinheiro, who worked on Transformers.” Stanislav Litvinov, director, spoke about the use of artificial intelligence in documentary filmmaking:

Stanislav Litvinov, a director, spoke about the use of artificial intelligence in documentary filmmaking: “I love art, but I don’t know how to draw at all. Making a storyboard by hand seems like fantasy to me. This is where AI comes to the rescue, as it can visualize text or turn a photographed location into a drawing where the director makes notes.”

Anna Slyusarenko spoke about producing documentaries with sensitive content as a tool of cultural diplomacy: “We were very surprised when we received a voice message from a girl from Simferopol. She spoke excellent Ukrainian, although she lived 10 years of her life under occupation. For her, preserving her identity consists in reading Taras Shevchenko’s “Kobzar” every day. The girl secretly teaches children the Ukrainian language, and while the war is going on, she has to remain in a secret circle, because revealing her name could cost her life. It was difficult to keep the line between telling something and not saying too much, to balance the context correctly.”

Yevhen Mazurenko and Iryna Sakhaltueva presented their experience in producing the trilogy “The Art of War.” Director Mazurenko shared: “I once saw a photograph of a monk who committed self-immolation in protest against the oppression of Buddhists. I thought, what a strong person he is, capable of calmly burning in the lotus position. The beginning of the war was the opposite for me — everything was burning, and something had to be done. I was looking for a calm hero in myself. A film about this — about ordinary people who decided to go to the front and are in this raging flame.”

Yevhen Mazurenko also emphasized: “What is cinema for? To establish partnerships: with foreign partners and civilians — to show that you can fight not only through agony, but this is also a unique opportunity to understand yourself and the world. My film is about pure contemplation: how people live in artillery positions, what they talk about and what they are made of.”

Producer Iryna Sakhaltuyeva added: “Last year, our studio created the documentary “Perun’s Flute” from the “Art of War” trilogy for the first time. When you work with documentary film, you no longer work with characters, but with heroes — living people.”

Photos from the fourth day of the OIFF: https://new.oiff.com.ua/materials

The Odesa International Film Festival is supported by:

Ukrainian State Film Agency

The European Union and Creative Europe Desk Ukraine

Adam Mickiewicz Institute “Instytut Adama Mickiewicza”

Polish Institute in Kyiv

German Films

In partnership with the Goethe-Institut in Ukraine

Official Sponsor – ARARAT

Official Automotive Partner – BMW Ukraine

General Partner of Film Industry Office – UPHub

Official jewelry partner - Carrera Y Carrera General