Buy a ticket and help Ukrainian filmmakers

Every year, the audience at the Eastern Neighbours Film Festival has the opportunity to see the most relevant films from Ukraine. This year is no exception, we will show two award-winning Ukrainian documentaries, and ticket proceeds will be paid directly into the account of the directors currently filming in their homeland.
Iryna Tsylik’s Sundance awarded The Earth is Blue as an Orange (Zemlia Blakytna Niby Apel’syn) is scheduled for Saturday, April 23. The next day we are screening Alina Gorlova's This Rain Will Never Stop (Tsey Doshch Nikoly Ne Skincytsia), Winner of the IDFA Award for Best First Appearance in 2020.Both screenings will be accompanied by The Hague-based Vocal Ensemble "Chervoni Korali" and Natalia Malkhanova, who will perform Ukrainian spirituals and folk songs. 

This Rain Will Never Stop

TSEY DOSHCH NIKOLY NE SKINCHYTSIA (Alina Gorlova)Ukraine, Latvia, Germany, Qatar | 2020 | 102 minA powerful journey through an endless cycle of war and peace. Winner of the IDFA Award for Best First Appearance, as well as Best Film prizes at Go East Wiesbaden, One World Prague, and Festival Dei Popoli Florence. Having fled war in Syria, the Suleyman family is scattered around Europe and the Middle East. Andriy is in Ukraine, his brothers are in Germany and Iraq, while one remained in Syria. The film follows Andriy, who works as a volunteer with the Red Cross. He is now faced with another military conflict, the Donbas war, and is unsure whether to escape the war or stay and help people who suffer. He visits his brother in Germany and some of his relatives in Iraq for an emotional reunion. While we follow him on his journey, we see footage of humanitarian relief efforts, military parades, various festivities, and happenings from everyday life. After the sudden death of his father, Andriy decides to accompany the body back to Syria.
FESTIVALS & AWARDS (SELECTION) IDFA, Amsterdam 2020 – Best First Appearance Award, World Premiere| Festival Dei Popoli, Florence 2020 – Best Feature Length | Docudays UA, 2020 – Current Time Award | goEast, Wiesbaden 2021 – Best Film | Ethnocineca, Vienna 2021 – International Documentary Award | One World, Prague

The Earth is Blue as An Orange

ZEMLIA BLAKYTNA NIBY APEL’SYN (Iryna Tsylik)Ukraine, Lithuania | 2020 | 74 minTo cope with the daily trauma of living in the Ukraine warzone, Anna and her children are making a film together about their life in the most surreal surroundings. Sundance-awarded documentary that shows how much power can art have in wartime. Single mother Anna and her four children live in the front-line war zone of Donbas, Ukraine. While the outside world is made up of bombings and chaos, the family is managing to keep their home as a haven, full of life and full of light. Every member of the family has a passion for cinema, motivating them to shoot a film inspired by their own life during a time of war. The creative process raises the question of what kind of power the magical world of cinema could have during times of disaster. How to picture war through fiction? For Anna and the children, transforming trauma into a work of art is the ultimate way to stay human.

FESTIVALS & AWARDS (SELECTION) Sundance Film Festival, 2020 – Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary | Seattle International Film Festival, 2020 – Grand Jury Prize: Documentary Competition | IDFA, 2020 | Berlinale, 2020 | European Film Awards, 2020 | Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, 2020 | CPH: DOX, 2020 | ZagrebDox, 2021 – Movies That Matter Award [/et_pb_text]