The 15th Odesa International Film Festival announces a programme of documentary hits

As part of the 15th Odesa International Film Festival, viewers will be presented with documentary hits covering important sociocultural topics, from war and its influence to xenophobia in cinema and the role of women in society.

The programme includes 6 films:

• Charakter: Athlete, dir. Radan Špongl, Czech Republic, 2024

During the aggression on Ukraine, Russian soldiers killed more than 400 Ukrainian athletes. Russians destroyed hundreds of stadiums, sports centers, gyms, and pools. Thousands of young athletes and children fled war to foreign countries. Exactly two years after the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine, we were assessing the impact of the war on Ukrainian sports, athletes, and sports infrastructure.

• Loch Ness: They Created A Monster

Rumours and sightings of a dinosaur-like creature had persisted at the Loch for decades, and the 1970s saw a frenzy of Monster Hunting. From Japan, the US, and across the world, World War 2 veterans, mad scientists, and hippies were drawn to a remote lake in the highlands of Scotland competing in a search for what they passionately believed would be the Natural History Discovery of the Century. But the deeper they looked, the darker it got. 

• Putin's Playground, dir. Konrad Szolajski, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Bulgaria, Norway, Latvia, 2024

A pair of Polish documentary filmmakers are travelling through Central and Eastern Europe. They are looking for traces of the hybrid war used by Putin to rebuild the Russian empire.  They track down GRU agents who blew up ammunition depots and poisoned Moscow's opponents with novichok. They meet two presidents, a prime minister, a defence minister, a captured Russian spy, and a dozen agents of influence. The sum of these experiences leads to a disturbing conclusion and... a surprising finale. 

• Three Sparks, dir. Naomi Uman, Mexico, Albania, 2023

The author of the film is an American director who has been living in a village near Uman since 2006. She studies history, ethnography, language and dialect, and village life in Ukraine. Her new film, "Three Sparks", participated in the main competition of the Rotterdam Film Festival. The tape is dedicated to the role of women in society using the example of Albania, which is quite unknown to us. The film is a poetic depiction of local life and ends with a video clip in which the villagers themselves create their image in the film.

• Warriors, dir. Ruslan Shadyiev, Ukraine, 2024

The MEGOGO ORIGINALS team recorded all the characters according to the rules of the documentary genre — these are real people and stories told without a script. In the first episode viewers will get to know the commander of the special forces unit, a HUR MOU officer with the call sign NED. The fighter met the full-scale invasion abroad but decided to return and stand up for the defense of the state. "NED" leads the unit "NOBODY" as part of the "Special Unit Timur" of the HUR MOU, which performs the most difficult tasks on the front line and behind enemy lines.

• Zinema, dir. Kornii Hrytsiuk, Ukraine, Luxembourg, 2024

Zinema is a feature-length documentary by Kornii Hrytsyuk which investigates propaganda, xenophobia and chauvinism in Russian cinema from the 1990s to today.

The 15th Odesa International Film Festival will take place from July 12 to 20, 2024, in Kyiv.

The 15th Odesa International Film Festival is supported by the Ukrainian State Film Agency and the Creative Europe Program.