Andrii Nidzelskyi

Erik is convinced he has a stone for a heart. That’s why he doesn’t mind that his parents have no time for him, or that he is bullied at school, or that he has no real friends. When his family moves to a villa they inherited, he is confronted by Maria whom Erik's parents want to kick out along with her father. Maria refuses to move and promises to make Erik's life a living hell. As a last attempt to defeat Erik, Maria goes to look for her mother who disappeared two years ago. Together they end up on a fantastical journey to the In-Between-World and Erik learns how hard it really is to wear a heart of stone.

A film that depicts the young Ukrainian generation scarred by war and political breakthroughs. The film's starting point is the preparation for a play based on the motifs of Shakespeare's Hamlet, which, combined with an intense glimpse into the lives of the characters, creates a powerful portrait of a generation having to confront their war trauma and tackle the painful past, which now after the Russia's invasion of Ukraine becomes their present and future alike.

1990년대 우크라이나의 산업 지역에 라이노라는 한 젊은 청년이 있다. 어린 시절 공격적인 비행청소년이었던 그는 이제 폭력 범죄자가 되었다. 포스트 소비에트 시대, 혹독한 경쟁 사회를 누비며 지역 범죄조직에서 빠르게 성장해가지만, 그의 인생과 주변 사람들의 희생이라는 혹독한 대가를 치러야만 한다. 라이노는 너무 늦기 전에 구원을 찾을 수 있을까?

Personal videos from the phones, camcorders, cameras and GoPros of Ukrainian soldiers are woven into a surreal journey to the frontline of the war with Russia. The film shows a bizarre world whose laws are quite different from what we are used to. The behaviour is different, the relationships unfold differently and the humour takes on different notes. The heroes wake up and fall asleep, rejoice and cry, always feeling that the recording may end at any moment.

Living in war-torn Eastern Ukraine Anna is an aging single mother who is desperate for a change. Lured by a radio advertisement, she goes to party with a group of American men who are touring the country, searching for love.

The film’s story is based on the fate of the Floriculture Pavilion of the former Exhibition of Achievements of the People’s Economy, and its elderly employee Valentyna Voronina, who maintains this space, investing her own life into it, until suddenly changes come to her. After forty-five years of work, she is asked to retire. But Voronina does not agree with that, because she thinks that all the plants will die without her. Meanwhile, a group of mysterious radioesthesists find a channel of positive energy right in front of the entrance to the pavilion.

Anya and Seryozha, eighteen and nineteen years old, have been close friends since school. They live in Mariupol, an industrial city in southeastern Ukraine. The film shows snapshots from the life of young people searching for who they want to be and how they want to live. They move between autonomy and uncertainty, rebellion and melancholy. They are full of imagination and willpower.

The city of Mariupolis is by the Azov sea. It is also on the river Kalmius. Most of the city’s residents, half a million according to the last census, are working for the steel factory and do fishing, for leisure or food, in between shifts. The orthodox church towers above the city and its newly build bronze domes are sitting next to it, waiting to be donned. A tent near by is sheltering a crying icon, which receives a steady flow of visitors.

"Stronger than Arms", is the history that heats our hearts up with the memory of events and people, who from the time of Euromaidan to the war in the East were building a new Ukraine.

The meaning of the main character's life is the cultivation of flowers. His fragile harmony is disturbed by the sudden death in the neighborhood and the same sudden appearance of a young woman. To dampen his growing interest in his new neighbor, the hero tries to concentrate even more on his plants, which for him are the model of an ideal world. But his train is irresistible.