Documentary film festival about EU support for Ukrainian culture in times of war started

On 19 February 2024, the documentary film festival Culture in Time of War in Ukraine, organised by the European Union to Ukraine in cooperation with Ukraїner, kicked off at the KINO42 cinema in Kyiv. This is the final event of the ‘Together we create. Together we preserve’ communication campaign which raises awareness of the European Union’s support for Ukrainian culture and art in times of war.

The festival opened with the premiere of the ‘Culture in Time of War.Museums’ documentary, which concludes a series of five films based on the footage of Ukraïner’s social and cultural missions to the North, South, East and West of Ukraine. Together, they comprise a coherent narrative about the life and work of Ukrainian cultural luminaries during the large-scale Russian war and the role of the European Union’s immediate support for artists after February 24, 2022. The first film in the series, ‘Culture in Time of War. The West’ premiered on June 29, 2023.Ukraïner’s work continued for almost a year, and now all the films will be screened in Kyiv, followed by Chernihiv, Poltava, Odesa and Lviv.

“Culture is a cornerstone national identity. It shapes traditions, values, and principles of people and states. This is why it is so important to protect and preserve cultural heritage especially in times of great threat of destruction and annihilation. This is the aim of our support for Ukrainian culture, which the European Union has strengthened since the onset of the full-scale Russian war. The documentaries produced by Ukraïner as part of the ‘Together We Create. Together We Preserve’ campaign focus on this support and on Ukraine’s European culture, with its deep historical roots”, said <Katarína Mathernová, Ambassador of the European Union to Ukraine.

During the opening ceremony, the festival guests discussed with to EU representatives and the authors of the documentary series Culture in Time of War.

Ukrainian culture is an inseparable and organic part of the European civilisational space. The full-scale Russian war has put it under a threat of extermination. According to the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, from 24 February 2022 to 25 December 2023, more than 1,500 cultural sites were damaged or destroyed in Ukraine (including 872 cultural heritage sites). Unique artifacts and works of art remained in the temporarily occupied territories or were illegally removed to Russia. Therefore, the European Union has mobilised over EUR 15 million to support and protect Ukraine’s cultural heritage, art and creative industries. This allowed saving hundreds of museums and cultural centres, preserve invaluable collections and artworks, buy protective equipment and supplies, digitise cultural heritage sites, help pay salaries to employees, and secure conditions for more than 1,000 Ukrainian artists to continue their work.

“It was extremely important for us to keep a record of how culture was changing throughout 2023 due to Russia’s full-blown war against Ukraine, equally in different regions, both de-occupied and those in the rear. We are grateful to the EU for this opportunity and hope that we will soon be able to visit the regions that are still under occupation,” said Bohdan Lohvynenko, founder of Ukraїner and author of Culture in Time of War documentary series.

The EU has funded a number of cultural initiatives implemented in Ukraine through the House of Europe, EU4Culture, Creative Europe, EaP Civil Society Facility and in cooperation with the ALIPH Foundation.