by FIlmInk Staff
Wartime Ukrainian cinema comes to Melbourne and Sydney
Melbourne & Sydney | 27 May – 2 June 2026 | Lido Cinema Hawthorn & Ritz Cinema Randwick, Sydney
The Ukrainian Film Festival Australia 2026 will bring eight powerful contemporary Ukrainian fi lms to Melbourne and Sydney this May, including several Australian premieres and work from the Oscar-winning team behind the documentary 20 Days in Mariupol.
Taking place from 27 May to 2 June at Lido Cinema in Melbourne and Ritz Cinema in Sydney, the festival highlights a generation of fi lmmakers documenting their country while living through war, with some directors and cinematographers simultaneously serving on the frontline.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has not only been fought on the battlefield. Museums, theatres and cultural institutions have been destroyed, artists killed or imprisoned, and Ukrainian history suppressed in occupied territories. In this context, cinema has become an act of cultural preservation and resistance.
The festival is an initiative of the Film and Theatre Council of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations, endorsed by the Embassy of Ukraine in Australia, and supported by the Ukrainian Council of NSW and the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria.
Australia is home to one of the largest Ukrainian diasporas in the world, and the festival offers Australian audiences a rare opportunity to engage with contemporary Ukrainian cinema and storytelling.
The Programme
2000 Meters to Andriivka (Mstyslav Chernov | 107 min) From the Oscar®-winning team behind 20 Days in Mariupol, Chernov follows a Ukrainian brigade battling through a fortified forest to liberate a Russian-occupied village. Weaving bodycam footage with moments of profound reflection, the film reveals soldiers who advance further into their destroyed homeland, knowing this war may never end.
Cuba & Alaska (Yegor Troyanovsky | 93 min | ★ Australian Premiere) Two inseparable frontline medics navigate daily danger with dark humour and fierce dreams, one sketching ‘futuristic female warrior’ fashion, the other clinging to music. When shrapnel nearly costs Alaska her life, the bonds of friendship are tested against the reality that there is no pause button, no going back. A deeply human portrait of women at war. (Ukraine, France, Belgium)
Porcelain War (Bellomo & Leontyev | 87 min) Ukrainian artists paint intricate, exquisite porcelain in the rubble of a country at war — a breathtaking meditation on the relationship between beauty, creation, and destruction, and the fierce determination to keep making art no matter what surrounds you.
Queens of Joy (Olga Gibelinda | 90 min | ★ Australian Premiere) Trans icon Monroe and drag artists Aura and Marlen Scandal come together to stage a charity drag show in support of Ukraine, proving that queer culture and artistic expression are themselves powerful weapons of resistance and solidarity. A debut feature about self-discovery, community, and defiance. (Ukraine, France, Czech Republic)
Sanatorium (Gar O’Rourke | 90 min | ★ Australian Premiere) At a crumbling Soviet-era health resort near Odesa, patients seek wellness through mud baths and electric therapy while disco nights punctuate the distant rumble of war. A tragicomic, deeply moving portrait of ordinary people — a wounded soldier, a woman seeking fertility cures, a hopeful mother — reclaiming dignity and community in extraordinary times.
Slovo House. Unfinished Novel. (Taras Tomenko | 120 min | ★ Australian Premiere) Shot in luminous black and white, this haunting historical drama chronicles the ‘Executed Renaissance’ — Ukraine’s greatest literary minds, gathered by Stalin into a Kharkiv apartment building that became a gilded trap. As an NKVD informant accelerates the community’s destruction, the film draws a direct line from Stalin’s erasure of Ukrainian culture to the present day, against the backdrop of the Holodomor genocide.
Timestamp (Kateryna Gornostai | 125 min | ★ Australian Premiere) Without narration or interviews, this mosaic documentary immerses audiences in Ukrainian schools both on and off the frontline — where teachers and students, navigating online learning and air raid drills, refuse to let war steal education or normalcy from them.
Us, Our Pets and the War (Anton Ptushkin | 79 min | ★ Australian Premiere) From cats and dogs in abandoned buildings to lions and tigers in besieged zoos, Ukrainians are risking their lives to ensure no animal is left behind. A tribute to the very best of the human spirit — compassion and care persisting amid catastrophe.
The Way Home (Stefan Bugryn | 16 min | ★ Short Documentary) After Stalin ordered the forced collectivisation of all the farms in Ukraine, Maxim, a humble cucumber farmer, rebels. He is arrested by local authorities and shipped off to forced labour camps of SIberia. In a bid to survive and return to his family, he steals away in the dead of night and begins the 1,000km journey home.
This project was created by several members of Melbourne’s Ukrainian community.
Image: from 2000 Meters to Andriivka by Mstyslav Chernov
