Strikingly non-intrusive and employing the observational mode, Dymytro Hryshko’s Mountains and Heaven in Between (2022) traverses through a plenitude of vignette-like chapters faced by ambulance workers. The film is set in the quaint village of Kolochava, which lies amidst peaks of snow-covered Transcarpathian Mountains, in Western Ukraine.

Documentary films represent reality rather than the fictional world, and the relationship between the filmmaker and topic is different. When a documentary filmmaker chooses a personal topic where the protagonist is oneself or a very close person to them, they are exposing their vulnerable moments to the eyes of public. It is also the situation in Ivanko Igor’s Fragile Memory (2022).

The efficacy and potency of journalism is in question. Thomas Keenan points to the Bosnian war as epitomic of the contrary influence of media footage and reporting, which can act to desensitise and pacify those viewers it otherwise seeks to inspire.

Magnus Gertten’s Nelly and Nadine tells the unconventional story of two women who met in concentration camps during World War II. The film begins by explaining why Nelly's granddaughter, Sylvie, has not dared to open her grandmother's diaries, postcards, and rolls of film for years. This hesitation that we see at the very beginning, the fear derived from the irreversibility of crossing a...

What comes to mind when one hears the words 'indigenous people'? One may think of 'primitive' or 'innate,' which are the counterparts to 'urbanized' or 'technological.' However, surprisingly enough, one can see tech-savvy indigenous people in Alex Pritz's first feature documentary, The Territory (2022).

The films of Ruth Beckermann urge and document the repossession of one’s time and space, a political way of introspection, a resistance against oblivion, and they offer an insight into rites, customs and performances. Ruth Beckermann, one of the freest filmmakers of our era turned 70 on November 27, 2022.

In May 2014, Jairo Fuentes Epiayu found himself far from home, in Zug, Switzerland. As governor of New Tamaquito, an indigenous Colombian village forced to relocate due to harmful mining practices, he addressed a room of Glencore shareholders, telling them, with great seriousness, "you're exploiting the mines in my country to multiply your wealth". The Wayúu leader was referring to Cerrejón, a...

Since its beginnings, Verzió Film Festival has screened Ukrainian documentaries and welcomed Ukrainian filmmakers. The festival organizers maintain a close relationship with Ukrainian documentary filmmakers through our partner festival, DocuDays UA. Some of these films and filmmakers are presented in what follows.

Alina Gorlova’s documentary This Rain Will Never Stop is a war documentary very different from the conventional documentaries on wars. It presents war in artistically, to rather show its impact on the people. yet we still are kept at a distance from the bombs and blood visually, which are usually a part of war documentaries. Alina Gorlova has incorporated different artistic choices to guide us...