The Guardian is celebrating Ukrainian cinema with a specially curated selection of documentaries, made before the current war. Presented in collaboration with the Kyiv-based Docudays UA film festival, these award-winning movies offer insight into the modern history of the country, its culture and its people.
In This Rain Will Never Stop, directed by Alina Gorlova, we meet Andriy Suleyman, 20, who escaped Syria with his family for Ukraine, his mother’s homeland. Shot in black and white, the film is a sophisticated vision of war zones and the scars they leave.
Art has become a way for the radical cabaret act Dakh Daughters – having lived through the Maidan revolution, a pivotal moment in Ukrainian history – to reflect on the 2014 uprising while facing the harsh realities of today with wisdom and hope, as seen in Roses. Film-Cabaret, directed by Irena Stetsenko.
School #3, directed by Yelizaveta Smith and Georg Genoux, invites pupils in Donbas to talk about the things that matter to them.