From 2nd to 9th November, Warsaw’s Ukraine! Film Festival brings together award-winning cinema, intimate documentaries, forgotten film history and live music, offering a varied picture of Ukrainian life and culture.
Ukrainian cinema takes centre stage in Warsaw this November as the Ukraine! Film Festival returns for its 11th edition. Running from 2nd to 9th November, the festival brings together feature films, documentaries, animation and short films exploring everything from Russia’s invasion to friendship, identity, memory and everyday life.
The programme includes films recognised at international festivals, emerging filmmakers and works that revisit lesser-known chapters of Ukrainian history. Alongside screenings, audiences can expect discussions, workshops, theatre and live music, making the festival an opportunity to encounter Ukrainian culture through more than one artistic form.
From supernatural stories to award-winning cinema
The festival opens with Demons, directed by Natalka Vorozhbyt, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival. Set in Poltava, the film follows Nina, who takes in a homeless Russian wanderer claiming to be a writer. Reality and fantasy meet as witches, ghosts and complicated relationships enter the story.
The film also features Ruslana Pysanka, the Ukrainian actress familiar to Polish audiences for playing Horpyna in Jerzy Hoffman’s With Fire and Sword. Pysanka died in 2022 while the film was being made, but production was completed in accordance with the director’s original vision.
Another major title is Traces, Ukraine’s official submission for the Academy Awards. The programme also features For the Victory! by Valentyn Vasyanovych, which received the Platform Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival and subsequently won awards at the Odesa International Film Festival.
A retrospective of Vasyanovych’s work includes Atlantis and Reflection, offering audiences the chance to explore the director’s distinctive approach to the experiences and consequences of war.
How war reshapes ordinary lives
The Russian invasion remains an important subject, but the films approach it from different angles.
Dmytro Hreshko’s documentary Divia examines the damage caused to the natural environment by the invasion, highlighting a consequence of war that can be overlooked amid daily reports from the front.
The Veterans’ Theatre, directed by Yulia Bolshynska, follows soldiers, medics, volunteers and veterans as they work together to stage a production of Eneida. The project brings together people whose lives have been changed by the war, exploring the role that theatre can play in their experiences.
A different perspective comes from Nice Ladies, Maria Ponomarova’s documentary about a group of cheerleaders from Kharkiv, all aged over 50. The invasion separates the team, with some members leaving Ukraine while others remain in a city under bombardment.
As the women try to preserve their long-standing friendships across borders and amid uncertainty, the film turns its attention to the bonds that sustain people through difficult circumstances.
Together, these works demonstrate the range of stories Ukrainian filmmakers are telling, including those concerned with the environment, community and personal relationships rather than combat alone.
New voices and a look back at film history
The short-film competition features 23 fiction, documentary and animated films, providing a platform for emerging talent and a variety of filmmaking styles.
The programme also looks beyond contemporary Ukraine. A screening of Alim, a 1926 film directed by Georgiy Tasin, revisits one of the earliest surviving cinematic portraits of the Crimean Tatars. Banned by Soviet authorities in 1937, the film was reportedly subject to efforts to destroy its copies.
The screening will be accompanied by a discussion titled Crimea: Forbidden Memory, with Urszula Doroszewska and Nedim Useinov.
Another historical selection, Dovzhenko: The First Look, directed by Kostiantyn Konovalov, explores the early career of Olexandr Dovzhenko, one of the defining figures in Ukrainian cinema.
The festival is also making space for Belarusian cinema through its Belarusian Film Corps section, organised in collaboration with the Bulbamovie festival. The selection includes features, documentaries and short films.
Martyna Lach, the festival’s programme director, says the intention is to reflect the breadth of filmmaking taking place in Ukraine.
“We are very keen to show the diversity of contemporary Ukrainian cinema, both in terms of the subjects it addresses and the film genres it embraces. The programme includes comedies, a musical, action films, biographies, as well as very personal, intimate auteur cinema. We want to show that Ukrainian filmmakers are not limited to one subject or one way of telling stories. Even in wartime, cinema full of humour, imagination and artistic courage is being made.”
Discussions, workshops and a musical finale
The accompanying events extend the programme beyond the screen. A panel, Ukrainian Cinema 2026: From Survival to a New Model, will consider funding, international co-productions and the future of Ukrainian filmmaking in Europe.
Other events include a debate and workshops on disinformation and its social consequences, alongside a masterclass titled The Lawlessness of Drama with opening-film director Natalka Vorozhbyt.
Younger audiences are catered for with animation screenings and activities, as well as the theatre performance Kotygoroshko. There will also be workshops introducing Wybijka, a traditional Ukrainian textile-decoration technique.
The festival closes with a meeting of silent cinema and contemporary music. The Polish-Ukrainian group DAGADANA will perform an original live score for Olexandr Dovzhenko’s 1927 film The Diplomatic Courier’s Bag. Drawing on Polish and Ukrainian musical traditions alongside jazz, electronic music, folk and art pop, the group will give the nearly century-old film a new musical dimension. A short concert set will follow the screening.
Visiting the Ukraine! Film Festival
The 11th Ukraine! Film Festival runs from 2nd to 9th November 2026 at Kino Atlantic, Kino Amondo and the Andrzej Wajda Film Culture Centre in Warsaw.
The festival will also reach audiences beyond the capital. During November and December, screenings and festival events will extend to 11 other Polish cities: Wrocław, Kraków, Poznań, Lublin, Przemyśl, Bielsko-Biała, Słupsk, Zielona Góra, Łódź, Gdańsk and Gliwice. The nationwide programme brings Ukrainian cinema to audiences across Poland, including communities with established connections to Ukraine.
Tickets and festival passes are on sale for the Warsaw edition, with the full programme available on the festival’s official website.
From contemporary documentaries shaped by the invasion to silent cinema, animation and experimental storytelling, this year’s selection offers a varied picture of Ukrainian life and culture. The festival provides an opportunity to discover the filmmakers and stories shaping Ukrainian cinema today, both in Warsaw and across the country.