Le Zhovten de Kyiv

Le Zhovten de Kyiv

2024 · 52 min · Documentary

This documentary about the Zhovten Cinema in Kyiv, which was constructed in 1931 and is one of the city's oldest, tells about how such spaces can function as cultural gathering points and the heritage of a country. The Zhovten Cinema in Kyiv is a unique opportunity to understand how a cinema can symbolize cultural resistance and identity. Zhovten (the name means October) becomes a cultural beacon and refuge, where the film becomes a bridge between past and present and local and global perspectives.

Directed by Nadia Parfan · Written by Olena Morentsova-Shulyk

Your Rating

Make it a double feature

1h 2m together

Le Zhovten de Kyiv

Mosaics of Kyiv

Both from Nadia Parfan.

More from Nadia ParfanSee all →

MovieDocumentary

Mom feeds little birds from the window of a panel building in Mariupol, Ukraine, and grows quince in her dacha garden near the battle line. Telling about her simple life, the woman shoots videos for her daughter, who lives in Kyiv and often doesn't pick up the phone.

Mosaics of Kyiv

Mosaics of Kyiv · 2024

Mosaics of Kyiv

A married couple of artists is creating a mosaic on the wall of a cultural space in Kyiv. They work in the upcycling technique, drawing inspiration from Kyiv's mosaics made during Soviet times.

It’s a Date

It’s a Date · 2023

Kyiv in 2022. A car races at breakneck speed through the city at dawn. Filmed from a subjective camera angle in a single unedited shot, this remale of Claude Lelouch's "C'était un rendez-vous" captures the emotions in a state of emergency caused by the war.

Exarch

MovieDocumentary

A young Orthodox priest, fed up with too much intolerance and hypocrisy at the Kyiv Pechery Lavra, decides to leave his service there. He finds for himself a new flock: gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people as well as those living with HIV/AIDS. However, the official Orthodox Church denies them in the right to be Christians and homophobic society compels them to hide their sexual orientation. What has to happen to make the Church embower LGBT believers?

Giorgos and Polya

Giorgos and Polya · 2019

Giorgos and Polya

MovieDocumentaryRomance

This is a documentary story of love, a story about the long-distance relationship that started in September 2014, while war in Ukraine and the economic crisis in Greece were taking a dramatic turn.

Women Who Play

Women Who Play · 2021

MovieDocumentary

This a playful film bringing us back to childhood, where everything started. It portraits seven girls who have grown up and who now "rock". They won't be talking about success, but they are the ones who know the rules of the game, and who also know how to violate them correctly. The film is a collective portrait of seven outstanding women in modern Ukrainian culture: writer Sofia Adrukhovych, cultural journalist Vira Baldyniuk, conductor Oksana Lyniv, artist Alina Kleytman, theatre director Tamara Trunova, cultural manager Yulia Fediv and film director Iryna Tsilyk.

I Did Not Want to Make a War Film

I Did Not Want to Make a War Film · 2022

I Did Not Want to Make a War Film

MovieDocumentary

A full-scale invasion found the Kyiv director in a small Bedouin village in the Middle East. It was warm, safe, and unbearably far from home. Once the director had a prophetic dream. She decided to return to Kyiv, still the hostilities were unfolding. Despite the condemnation of relatives and the long journey, she finally managed to cross the threshold of her home. But the house itself has now become forever different.

Diorama

Diorama · 2018

MovieDocumentary

Life flows in its everyday reality, but then suddenly something elusive changes its course. All that is left is the chance to plunge into memories where everything is preserved, as if in a museum.

Housewarming

Housewarming · 2017

At some point, one has to move out. A man decided to take care of his new house in advance.

70 000 Years Ago

70 000 Years Ago · 2023

70 000 Years Ago

70,000 years ago. Khliupyk aka Namby-Pamby lives among a pack that expects him to eventually become a normal hunter, but his soul gravitates towards music. Will he become what his father and the pack see him as, or will he choose music?

70 Streets

70 Streets · 2016

MovieDocumentary

When Brovary village officially became a town, one third of its residents were communist. After 60 years and three revolutions such proportion didn’t change: thirty percent of its streets keep the names of the former empire.

Me and Mariupol

Me and Mariupol · 2017

Me and Mariupol

MovieDocumentary

Mariupol is an industrial city on Azov sea. I went there as a young sailor 20 years ago. The places alive in my memory are mostly destroyed. The battle-line of the Russian-Ukrainian war is just nearby the city. In the night I can hear the bombing. However, I am looking for the miracle there.

It's Quiet Down Below

It's Quiet Down Below · 2016

It's Quiet Down Below

MovieDocumentary

Metro is a factory of rush for the passengers. Thousands, who do not hurry to break the circulation schedule, work to create the rhythm. What does the escalator controller think of, sitting inside her booth during the rush hour? How do the cashiers see us through the window of their own, separate world, decorated with flowerpots? What a metro worker in the small room with found items loses?

Has-Beens

Has-Beens · 2016

MovieDocumentary

The Petrivka book market is a place where everyone brings their old books they no longer need. The market sellers are people of the old school who still perceive books as a sort of currency.

Birds & Beasts. The Universe of Hnizdovsky

Birds & Beasts. The Universe of Hnizdovsky · 2025

Birds & Beasts. The Universe of Hnizdovsky

MovieDocumentary

A whimsical TV documentary about renowned Ukrainian-American artist Jacques Hnizdovsky, whose journey from displaced persons camps to global fame mirrors the experiences of modern Ukrainian emigrants. Told through the eyes of his beloved cat Jérôme, it explores identity, nature, and overcoming loneliness.

Tell Me a Fairytale

Tell Me a Fairytale · 2026

Tell Me a Fairytale

MovieDocumentary

Openly gay soldier Pavlo and his boyfriend Vlad become a public couple. Constant media attention takes a toll on their relationship. The film follows their year-long struggle to maintain intimacy under the weight of war, distance, and unhealed trauma.

More Like This

Couldn't load this row right now.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter