Kalush Orchestra, or How We Stopped Worrying and Won Eurovision During the War

This documentary is a portrait of several residents in a remote region of Ukraine. They dream of sunken treasures, sing in a village choir, fight raiders and design coffins for themselves - in short, they live a normal Ukrainian life.

The eighth and ninth of May are dates that only border on each other on the calendar. In reality, they seem to be from different worlds: the meaning of the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation is understood at best by half of our great country, while the other half celebrates the Soviet-style Victory Day by inertia. We visited different parts of Ukraine and asked the same questions everywhere to find out what the eighth and ninth of May means to each of us.

A documentary project that shows viewers behind the scenes of this cultural exchange and explores the current processes of integrating Ukrainian culture into the European context. The heroes of the project are the participants and visitors of the festival, who demonstrate with their own stories the unique connection and cultural integration of Ukraine into the plane of Liverpool, one of the cultural capitals of Europe. In particular, Sarah Fisher, director of Liverpool's Open eye gallery, Yuliia Kurinna, a volunteer and displaced person from Nova Kakhovka, and actor and director Yurii Radionov will share their thoughts.

A story about Ukrainian monumental art of the Soviet period in Mariupol. Photographer Stanislav Ivanov lived in Mariupol all his life. He studied history, streets, houses, monumental art. Some of the mosaics are more than half a century old. The "Tree of Life" panel - created by a team of artists led by Alla Gorska and Viktor Zaretsky - was bricked up after the death of the artist and reopened in 2008. This and other stories were collected by Stanislav Ivanov and art critic Oleksandr Chernov in the album "All Shades of Mariupol Mosaics". After February 24, 2022, the mosaicists, like hundreds of thousands of residents of Mariupol, became hostages of the occupying forces of the Russian Federation. In the film, we are transported to peaceful Mariupol in December 2021 and, together with Stanislav, explore the city and its mosaics, transported to a place where time and the elements seemed to be the greatest threats.