The Travelling Docudays UA international documentary film festival starts today in Lviv
The Travelling Docudays UA is going to cities, towns and villages of Ukraine! In Lviv, this year’s 21st Travelling International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Docudays UA starts on 10 November and will run in an offline format until 22 November. In total, the festival will visit 15 regions so that as many people as possible can see the best films of Ukrainian and world documentaries.
“The audience in Lviv will be able to watch 4 screenings of films and human rights events at the Art Library, the Lower Hall at the Puppet Theatre and the Lviv Municipal Art Centre. There will also be discussions, debates and search for answers to many questions, which this time will focus on who we are and what Ukraine is,” the organisers say.
The central theme of the 21st Docudays UA is “10 years of a three-day war that lasts for three centuries” – a title full of contradictions that has become part of the new Ukrainian folklore.
Out of 62 films from 34 countries of the main programme of the 21st Docudays UA festival, which took place in May-June 2024 in Kyiv, 3 films by Ukrainian and foreign directors were selected for the Travelling Festival in Lviv.
The 21st Travelling Festival in Lviv will open on 10 November at 18:00 in the Lower Hall of the Puppet Theatre with the film Boots in the Dirt, Hands in the Ground by Karolina Uskakovich. The director herself will join the screening. The film encourages reflection on the power of human connection with nature, small homeland, family traditions, as well as on the revival of identity and the therapeutic effect of gardening.
On 15 November, at 18:00, the Art Library will host a screening of the film The Kyiv Files by Walter Stockman. The film immerses us in a time when people’s personal lives were pervaded by the paranoia of the Soviet regime, and shows how they were affected by this manic distrust. The stories of the characters remind us of the importance of transparency, accountability for crimes and protection of individual rights in any society. There will be a discussion with Vasyl Kmet, a historian and director of the Lviv Municipal Library.
On 22 November, at 18:00, the Lviv Municipal Art Centre will screen the film Nelson the Pig by Anneke de Lind van Wengarden, which tells the story of a family who adopted a dwarf pig as a pet. At least, that’s what the owners thought until Nelson grew into a half-tonne beast and caused a riot among neighbours, classmates and the police. The film will be accompanied by an audio description. There will also be a discussion about the accessibility of cinema and information for people who are blind and visually impaired.
As part of the Living Library, on 17 November, at 18:00, the Art Library will host a conversation with Rostyslav Kuzyk, a poet, translator and head of the Art Library.
All the films of this year’s festival have descriptive subtitles to show the sound part of the video, and 1 film has audio description – a special voiceover track to show the visual part of the film (Nelson the Pig).
For those who will not be able to attend the screenings, and for the residents of those cities where the festival will not be able to visit, the films from the 21st Travelling programme will be available for viewing in the DOCUSPACE online cinema during the last week of November.
You can learn more about the events of the 21st Docudays UA International Travelling Human Rights Documentary Film Festival on the Travelling page on Facebook and on the official festival website. There, you can also find more information about the films of the 2024 festival and their authors in the Programme section.
Festival organisers: NGO Docudays UA, Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, Charitable Organisation Charity and Health Foundation, Centre for Contemporary Information Technologies and Visual Arts and regional partners – in Lviv, the festival is organised by the Lviv Municipal Library.