The 2010s was a real renaissance in Ukrainian cinema. Ukrainian filmmakers — Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi, Valentyn Vasyanovych, Nariman Aliev, Antonio Lukich, Marysia Nikitiuk, and others — have attracted attention in international film festivals. Their films have explored many topics, from a main theme of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine to family dramas and travel stories.
Although little is known about Ukrainian cinema abroad, it has great potential. Let’s take a look at the best Ukrainian movies of the 2010s, each of them signaling toward a very bright future for Ukrainian film.
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7 Volcano
Tato Film
The 2018 comedy-drama Volcano follows foreigner Lukas, who comes to Ukraine on an OSCE mission. In the Ukrainian village, Lucas meets an eccentric man named Vova, who shows Lucas the surreal world of the Ukrainian province. Volcano premiered at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where it won nine awards, including the awards at festivals in Brazil, Switzerland, and China. It is a beautifully crafted work, both poetic and funny at the same time.
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6 Human with a Stool
Ridni Animation
In 2004, director and traveler Leonid Kanter came up with a crazy idea; he decided to bring four stools from his Kyiv kitchen to the shores of the four oceans. Kanter and his friends, a group of friendly dreamers, set out on a journey with almost no money, and the 2019 documentary film Human with a Stool tells the story of their incredible adventure. Unfortunately, the film that was supposed to inspire people to create and live a meaningful life has a second heartbreaking meaning. After the expeditions to the Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Pacific oceans, Leonid Kanter returned to Ukraine and went to war in Donbas. In 2018, Kanter passed away, and his friends finished Human with a Stool without him.
5 Homeward
Arthouse Traffic
2014 was a turning point in the history of Ukraine. After the pro-democracy protests in Ukraine, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and began armed conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine. These events became a part of the Russo-Ukrainian war, which expanded significantly after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian cinema has never stayed away from these events. In the second half of the 2010s, many movies about Euromaidan, Crimea, Donbas were released. The social justice Netflix documentary Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan and Donbass, and the drama about the Battle of Donetsk Airport, Cyborgs: Heroes Never Die, are just a few of them.
Homeward is arguably one of the best films for understanding what was happening in Ukraine. Directed by Nariman Aliev, this 2019 drama was screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Homeward is a harrowing, emotional, and compelling story of a father, Mustafa, whose elder son died in the war. Mustafa and his younger son have to transfer the dead body from the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, to their home in the Russian-occupied Crimea. Homeward has all the texture of a great road movie, but it is far deeper than many films of this genre.
4 When the Trees Fall
Directory films
When the Trees Fall premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, where the film’s director, Marysia Nikitiuk, was described as the wild new hope of Ukrainian cinema. The 2018 drama follows two cousins, 5-year-old Vitka, who rebels against her grandmother’s rules and dreams about fantasy worlds, and young Larysa, who loves a criminal and dreams of leaving the province. They are both searching for freedom. In When the Trees Fall, pain and brutal violence coexist with melancholy and surrealism. “I wanted to clash two realities: a childish and pure perception of the world full of magical potential as well as exhausted social norms”, Marysia Nikitiuk told Girls Are Awesome.
3 Atlantis
Best Friend Forever
Atlantis won the main award at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival Horizons section, and is definitely one of the most original Ukrainian movies. Valentyn Vasyanovych’s post-apocalyptic drama is set in Ukraine in 2025, one year after the end of the war. The film follows a soldier suffering from PTSD named Sergiy.
Sergiy lost his family and the meaning of life, but when he meets volunteer Katya, he sees that a better future is possible. Critics applauded the Vasyanovych movie, with Variety noting, “this is a strong piece of poetically pure art-house cinema that finally offers a ray of hope for humanity’s future — not just the Ukraine’s, as this largely depoliticized statement is one of universal relevance”.
2 My Thoughts Are Silent
My Thoughts Are Silent is an authentic and engaging film from Antonio Lukich’s, a comedy about two-meters-tall sound recordist Vadim, who has to record the voice of a very rare bird from Western Ukraine. To do this, Vadim goes on a trip with his mother, a taxi driver who likes Victoria Beckham. Their journey is full of conflicts and misunderstandings, but at the same time, jokes and warmth. My Thoughts Are Silent is a truly special and sincere film, which examines relationships between parents and children.
1 The Tribe
Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi’s 2014 crime drama The Tribe is the most successful and rewarded Ukrainian movie to date; the film won 29 awards, including four awards at Cannes Film Festival. The Tribe can leave an audience as speechless as its own sound design. It is a really shocking, compelling, and sad film about the dark side of a school of the deaf. The Tribe is a contemporary silent movie with no audible dialogue, as Slaboshpytskyi uses only sign language (eight years before CODA won the Best Picture Oscar). The story follows Serhiy as he tries to find his place in the new boarding school, where everything is controlled by a brutal gang.
Now, Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi is working on thriller The Tiger with Alexander Skarsgård and Dane DeHaan in leading roles. It is possible that after this film, the brilliant Ukrainian filmmaker will become known worldwide.
