Securing funding is not the only problem that some film festivals face. Yuliia Kovalenko, a Ukrainian film critic and programmer at Docudays in Kyiv who was involved in the Focus on Ukraine programme at Dokufest, told BIRN that her annual event was first hit by COVID-19 and then by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
However, by November 2022, they managed to stage a shorter, three-day Docudays event in Kyiv despite air raids and power shortages.
Kovalenko said that despite the ongoing conflict, “people are still working in Ukraine and finding the energy to do something and keep going”.
“Sometimes I feel exhausted,” she added, explaining that the Docudays festival is no longer just a festival, but an organisation that fundraises to save lives, helping to provide “protection gear for film-makers and journalists”.
Kovalenko mused that Ukraine might learn from the experience of Kosovo, “to analyse what we should do together to live in a better world, building a new global and secure” space.
“What happened in Kosovo was a disaster but nobody has borne responsibility. Serbia did not bear responsibility, but the importance of these festivals is to put the question of responsibility on the table,” she said.
