This program features eight Ukrainian films in different styles created during the last five years and recognized in their motherland. The Shop of SongBirds from an experienced animator Anatoliy Lavrenishyn is a visually rich tale with oriental and steampunk aesthetics mixed in. A well-known Ukrainian singer Katya Chilly was involved in the sound design for this film. In general, Ukrainian animators successfully collaborate with famous musicians: the examples of this are two music videos offered in the program. In Carpathian Rap, a music video to a song by DakhaBrakha, Sashko Danylenko combines ethnical motives with an original comic-book style – this mix will keep turning more audiences towards his creative works in the future. On the contrary, Oleg Shcherba in his video work for a folk band Zapaska turns to universal suprematist forms.
Two works from the program have become Ukrainian audience hits for young and old alike. These are The Gum by Olha Makarchuk, a fun fantasy inspired by everyday objects only an animator with rich imagination can notice. Challenging but close-to-home ideas have laid the foundation for a contemporary fairy tale The Fish-tailed Girl from Chervoniy Sobaka animation studio (Ukraine), which is considered a local brand of colorful plasticine animation. And the real spirit of adult indie is embodied in two works from Dnipro animators. THE END by Nikita Lyskov is an absurd kaleidoscope of comic and tragic scenes of approaching apocalypse where a connection with Ukrainian social realia can be identified. Another author Stas Santimov in his film Eluvium – Regenerative Being draws a dark surrealist world with the help of disturbing images; this world is intuitively understandable for a viewer from anywhere in the world.
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Ukraine | 2014 | 18'
In 1682 during his last trip to the Ottoman Empire Antoine Galland wrote down couple of stories that were told to him by a wandering monk. For unknown reasons those stories were not included to The Thousand and One Nights. Then 331 years have passed and animation studio MarcusFilm made a movie out of one of the most fantastic stories of the collection and called it The Shop of SongBirds.
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Ukraine | 2013 | 7' 41''
The Gum is an outcast, constantly neglected and forced to fit into circumstances. Until a random acquaintance with another rejected soul mate, a plastic bag, makes him dream of something bigger. Coming of age story of a bubble gum...
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Ukraine | 2013 | 5' 18''
The web covered the sky just like a dark cloud. Men hunting began. The strongest and most crafty cossacks with amazing skills failed to avoid capture. With deception, temptation or brute force did the spider hook them.
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Ukraine | 2013 | 15' 02''
Both a tale and a parable about a girl, who one day disappears from her room and appears in a magic forest. And what's most interesting, she has a fish tail. In the forest the Girl meets the Iron Wolf who speaks in riddles and tells her a tale. The girl goes through different lands and meets the Death. In all that she is driven by her desire to discover her true dream.
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Ukraine | 2017 | 4' 04''
Animated music video for Ukrainian group Zapaska. This abstract representation of a man who conditional "grows" a fragile crystal of life and carries it throughout the life segment, appreciating it, but inevitably and silently parted with it.
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Ukraine | 2017 | 7' 21''
The official music video for Regenerative Being by Eluvium. A lonely man finds himself in a strange place where everything has been planned in advance for his arrival.
