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Focus: Women and the Ukrainian Film Industry

Kids playing in a former Wehrmacht military base. A young couple trying to shut out the world for just one night. A car speeding through the silent city at dawn. A thirteen-year-old boy desperately searching for his dad’s sneakers. A girl returning home after a year away. And a four-year-old girl waking up to the sound of an air raid. Charmingly animated, melancholically wistful, impeccably timed, and both realistic and brutally raw, these films by talented Ukrainian women filmmakers capture the lived reality amid a war conflict. Without pathos or self-pity, and employing a variety of techniques and sophisticated approaches, they offer different perspectives on the current situation in Ukraine. This special program of Ukrainian shorts demonstrates the incredible power of art, the film medium, and especially, Ukrainian filmmakers.

Along with Girls in Film Prague, we will introduce the current landscape of Ukraine’s film industry. We will debate whether it is possible to maintain a functioning film industry during a war and what role women play in the industry.

Our guest will be Sasha Prokopenko – film curator and Head of Programming at Kyiv International Short Film Festival.

The discussion will be followed by screenings of short films by Ukrainian women filmmakers.

Films:

 

Dad’s Sneakers

 

It Is Quiet Here

 

It‘s a Date

 

Waking Up in Silence

 

As It Was

 

Mariupol: A Hundred Nights

Sasha Prokopenko

Sasha Prokopenko is a festival programmer, film curator and translator based in Kyiv, Ukraine. For the past five years, she has been a Head of Programming at the Kyiv International Short Film Festival. Sasha has participated in several film festivals as a curator, mentor, and jury member. She has also collaborated with the Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival and Ukraine's first LGBTQIA+ film festival, Sunny Bunny. Since 2016, she has worked at the independent film distribution company, KyivMusicFilm, which distributes films on art, music and culture. Amongst other projects, Sasha has programmed for 100 Films in 100 Minutes, INTRO film festival about music and culture, and Kino Susidiv, the international film festival in Uzhhorod, Zakarpattia. In 2024, Sasha was selected for the Berlinale Talents program.

Julie Marková Žáčková

Julie Marková Žáčková is a graduate of the Department of Production at FAMU and the Department of Critical and Cultural Theory at the Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures at Charles University. During her studies at FAMU she produced, among others, the short film Pravomil (2014, dir. Pavel Nosek), which won the Magnesia Award for Best Student Film at the Czech Lions. Since 2012, she has been working with Unit and Sofa, where as a producer she produced the feature film Occupation (dir. Michal Nohejl), which won the awards for Best Film, Screenplay, Direction and Discovery of the Year at the Czech Film Critics Awards and was nominated for the Czech Lion Awards in 13 categories, where it won the awards for Best Screenplay, Music and Supporting Actress. In 2017, she founded the Prague branch of the London-based Girls in Film platform, which showcases the work of promising young female filmmakers. Since 2019, she represents Czech and Slovak cinematographers under her talent agency NOCHI. She is a member of the European Film Academy.

Dagmar Sedláčková

Dagmar Sedláčková is a graduate of the Department of Film Studies at the Charles University and the Department of Production at FAMU. In 2014 she joined the independent production company MasterFilm as a producer and partner. She primarily focuses on projects with international reach and festival potential, but also works on projects for local streaming platforms. Films she has produced or co-produced have been screened in competition at prestigious European festivals such as Cannes, Locarno, Berlinale, Annecy, and have been nominated for an EFA award. She is a graduate of Eurodoc, the EAVE Producer's Workshop and a member of the EFA. For the Audionaut platform, she developed and produced a documentary podcast about true crimes, Girl-Missing, which premiered in spring 2020. She is a co-founder of the Girls in Film Prague platform.