Film Residency Wiz-Art 2023
14 participants. 14 unique stories. 14 short films. All different, yet each one sincere and unmistakably original.
This is what the LISFF Wiz-Art 2023 Film Residency became — a week-long creative journey that concluded with a screening of the works created under the mentorship of Valeriia Sochyvets and Anna Korzh.
Film Residency Program
OUR HOME // 17 min., Anna Yutchenko, Ukraine, 2023
In February 2022, the apartment my friend and I rented in Lviv turned into a transit hub. Friends, acquaintances, and strangers were fleeing to safer cities in Ukraine or abroad. My friend and I began hosting people — some stayed one night, others a few. No one stayed long, but everyone left their stories behind. And so, our home became a shared one.
WHY CAN’T WE SPEAK IN SILENCE? // 1 min., Natalka Yavorska, Ukraine, 2023
This story is about the questions the artist’s family has been asking since the beginning of the full-scale invasion — but most of all, about the one she asks herself. Conflicting perspectives make it impossible to build a quiet dialogue, to find a common language, a shared genetic code. It is an honest attempt at self-reflection, ending with an open question: “Why can’t we speak in silence?”
MIRAGE // 16 min., Roman Bordun, Ukraine, 2023
Myroslav works as a postman in his village. He delivers newspapers and pensions to neighbors and attends soldiers’ funerals. After conversations with a priest and his mother, he decides to leave home.
ATTENTION DEFICIT // 13 min., Yarema Holota, Ukraine, 2023
At the beginning of 2023, due to intense stress caused by the war and disappointment in my cinematography career, I became very distracted and started losing things. This became the starting point for exploring my mental health, resulting in a documentary film essay about the empirical perception of the world by a person with ADHD.
MY POSTCARD // 2 min., Taras-Bohdan Yaremak, Ukraine, 2023
Sometimes a single event brings a surge of overwhelming thoughts and emotions, filling the space around you and pushing you out of time itself into a desire to disappear. This is an attempt to capture that state in the form of video poetry.
VITA // 12 min., Vita Stoykova, Ukraine, 2023
Neonatologist Vita works every day with premature, abandoned, and healthy newborns. She dreams of having her own family but devotes herself entirely to her work. Despite her dedication, she resigns from the maternity hospital to join the Ukrainian Armed Forces as part of a medical battalion.
IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA // 12 min., Vadym Mochalov, Ukraine, 2023
The student film shoot of a Kyiv-based director is disrupted by the start of the full-scale invasion. After the first months of the war, Vadym gets the chance to make a new film — a documentary about the residents of Lukashivka village, who lost their homes during the Russian occupation of the Chernihiv region.
HOW I “CELEBRATED” RUSSIAN LANGUAGE DAY IN KHERSON // 9 min., Kateryna Kroha, Ukraine, 2023
A portrait of the city of Kherson during the flooding, told through the filmmaker’s personal experience of being there.
WHY AM I HERE? // 17 min., Oleksandra Pletenetska, Ukraine, 2023
Basil has spent his yearly vacation in Ukraine for the second year in a row. He comes to document the lives of ordinary people. Photographing and collecting materials for his book, he tries to connect with locals in towns close to the front line. What drives a foreigner to leave his peaceful city, spend his savings, and travel to a country at war?
MEET ME IN THE GARDEN // 7 min., Veronika Shuster, Ukraine, 2023
An epistolary story about home, flowers as a language of love, and relationships that continue to bloom despite distance and war.
FRAGMENTS OF LIFE // 18 min., Viacheslav Turianytsia, Ukraine, 2023
During a work break at a construction site, one of the workers steps away for lunch. Meanwhile, a young woman, Alika, takes care of her elderly grandmother.
WEIGHTLESSNESS // 9 min., Yelyzaveta Sherstniova, Ukraine, 2023
The liberation of her hometown, Kherson, compels Ania to return home as soon as possible — but her new boyfriend, Felix, tries to keep her with him in Berlin.
STORKS ALWAYS COME HOME // 28 min., Gala Koziutynska, Ukraine, 2023
Gala and Viktor search for their earthly paradise — even during the war. They buy an abandoned little house in the Carpathians and begin to rebuild it. A place of peace and quiet, where they can grow their own food, stay silent, be vulnerable, and drink coffee overlooking the mountains and a stork nest. But winter comes, the apple tree freezes, and the War reaches their paradise.
The film residency was implemented with the support of the Goethe-Institut Ukraine and America House Lviv.
