National Competition #2 Wiz-Art 2026

ON A STRINGER // 14′, Sashko Roshchyn, Ukraine, 2025

At noon, in the shade of riverside trees — as if in the middle of life — you lose something. Yet love is as strong as the river. A man is going through abrupt changes in his life — personal and those caused by the war. He spends a day alone with the river, revisiting forgotten hobby – fishing. A sense of love and acceptance fills the man, but only for a brief moment — he must return to the war.

(RE)COVERED MEMORY // 11′, Oleksandra Pletenetska, Ukraine, 2025

A group of activists is fighting to preserve a historical landmark in the center of Kyiv from a developer. Their struggle is an exact parallel to the fight for memory that took place a century ago, when the soviet government attempted to erase Ukrainian identity.

GIANT // 17′, Vadym Mochalov, Ukraine, 2026

While waiting for the results of the Molodist Film Festival selection, queer film director and bachelor’s graduate Tim has not-so-pleasant encounters in Kyiv with his friends, relatives and colleagues, who became part of his 30-minute thesis film.

IN 769 KM, NEW YORK // 15′, Sofiia Buhrii, Ukraine, 2025

In one of the few bakeries in Kyiv, people with mental disabilities make bread. Along with their own challenges, they have to live through the experience of war. However, their daily work saves the locals on frontline territories, which are under constant shelling by Russian forces, from the food crisis. Though strangers, they are united by bread, which acts as a guide on this journey from baking, packaging, and delivering to those who need it most. The final stop: New York, a Ukrainian village in Donetsk region, now occupied by Russia.

SELF-PRESERVING NUDITY // 7′, Nelly Shylova, Ireland, Ukraine, 2025

After her death by a russian missile, a ukrainian woman finds herself in the purgatory of the Irish countryside — between past and present, life and death. A poetic film-essay about trauma, exile as death, and the struggle to exist in an unreal world.

FUCK THEM ALL // 15′, Polina Biliaieva, Ukraine, 2025

Kira, a 30-year-old Ukrainian, flees to Poland at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, after losing her husband. Her thoughts remain with her war-torn home, but here a new challenge awaits her: Kira finds out that she is pregnant. Already traumatized, she doesn’t want to bring a new life into this world, but it is impossible for her to terminate the pregnancy in Poland. Kira decides to return to Ukraine, which is still in the middle of war, to have an abortion.

THE FERRY FLOWS // 18′, Zhora Papoian, Ukraine, 2026

A grey-haired music teacher from a small, yet picturesque Ukrainian island prepares his tiny brass ensemble for a spring concert with a song called “Draw me the night”. Soldier funerals come to town, turning him into a military conductor. A ferry that carried city residents through the Dniester River is now drawing night after night.