The ongoing horrors of war in Ukraine have raised questions for art communities around the world: How can we meaningfully respond to this crisis? How can we support and defend artists and art in the face of cultural and material destruction? And how can art, and cinema in particular, help us grapple with our collective past and present?

To delve into these questions, Film Comment editors Clinton Krute and Devika Girish invited scholars Anastasiya Osipova (founder and editor of Cicada Press) and Lukas Brasiskis to the podcast. Lukas, a curator at e-flux, recently programmed films by the young Ukrainian artists Piotr Armianovski and Mykola Ridnyi as a fundraiser event. With these two works as a starting point, Osipova and Brasiskis go deep on the cinema of Ukraine—from the archival documentaries and searing fictions of Sergei Loznitsa, to the work of Sergei Parajanov, Larisa Shepitko, and more—and what it reveals about the current political moment. The two also discuss ongoing efforts by the Dovzhenko Film Center to protect Ukrainian cinema.

See below for a list of resources, links, and suggestions for donations.

Links & Things

Donate:
A Letter for Ukraine: Resources and Suggestions for Donations at e-flux
Ukrainian Film Archives Donation Fund
The Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre
The Docudays UA festival’s Emergency Fund for Filmmakers in Wake of Ukraine War

Watch and read:
No! No! No!: Ukrainian Artists Films
Mykola Ridnyi’s Armed and Dangerous Project
Izolyatsia, an art center in exile
In Isolation: Dispatches from Occupied Donbass by Stanislav Aseyev
Stop-Zemlia (Kateryna Gornostai, 2021)
Donbass (Sergei Loznitsa, 2018)
Maidan (Sergei Loznitsa, 2014)
Babi Yar. Context (Sergei Loznitsa, 2021), screening March 20 at the Museum of the Moving Image before opening at Film Forum.
Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel (1966) by Anatoly Kuznetsov—Anastasia Osipova: “This is a book that everyone should read to understand the history of Babi Yar, and should be a prerequisite reading for watching Loznitsa’s film.”
The films of Larisa Shepitko
“Notes on Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors” by Sergei Parajanov
The White Bird Marked with Black (Yuri Ilyenko, 1971)
Cyborgs: Heroes Never Die (Akhtem Seitablaiev, 2017)