Ukraine's Civilian Soldiers: The War Recorded on Smartphones (2024)

SuperHeroes

When on February 24, 2022, Russian troops attacked Ukraine, the world stopped. The first shock, however, quickly turned into action. It was a natural impulse of the heart, Poles could not leave their neighbors, their friends from Ukraine completely alone. Almost everyone, residents of small and large cities, young and old, rich and poor, became involved in helping Ukrainians, opened their homes for those fleeing the war, and began to organize humanitarian aid. Did they pass the humanity test?

We Will Not Fade Away

For five teenagers living in the conflict-ridden Donbas region of Ukraine, a Himalayan expedition provides a brief escape from reality. A portrait of a generation that, in spite of everything, is able to recognise and celebrate the fragile beauty of life.

Cyborgs

‘The Cyborgs’ is re-telling the recent history of Ukraine – the legendary fight for Donetsk Airport in 2014 during Russian invasion. The freedom fighters from various divisions of Ukrainian army and volunteer battalions took a 242-days stand against the Russian backed militants until the complete destruction of the airport’s terminal.

Ukraine-Poland: The Border of Solidarity

Since 24 February 2022, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, several million refugees have already been taken in by Poles. In the Lublin region, near the Bug River, which marks the border with Ukraine and Belarus, farmers, shopkeepers, a photographer, and a teacher tell how their daily lives have been transformed by the outbreak of this war.

Kalush Orchestra, or How We Stopped Worrying and Won Eurovision During the War

A documentary story about the participation and victory at the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 by the Ukrainian band Kalush Orkestra.

20 Days in Mariupol

As the Russian invasion begins, a team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting the war's atrocities.

Lethal Kittens

In 2014 Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine turns hot. An engineer, actor, soccer coach and florist volunteer to fight on the front line. Unaware of the pivotal role they will play in the war, they discover the meaning of true leadership.

Myrnyi-21

The story of trust and its absence against the background of events unfolding in Eastern Ukraine in early 2014. The main topic is revealed through the prism of the Luhansk border base, whose fighters the separatists and Russian special services tried unsuccessfully force to betray their country.

The Invasion

A comprehensive chronicle of the consequences of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. How citizens live in wartime, how violence and death condition daily life: from schools in bomb shelters to rehabilitation centers for the maimed; wounds and silences, gestures and words.

The Distant Barking of Dogs

Hnutove, Donbass, eastern Ukraine, 2015. Young Oleg lives in a war zone where anti-aircraft gunshots and missile attacks often resonate dangerously near. Although many inhabitants have already left this dangerous area, he remains with his grandmother, who has cared for him since his mother's death, because they have nowhere to go. They are just waiting for the war to end.

YEAR

A documentary film-project by Dmytro Komarov. He was the first journalist to witness and film the horrors of the just-liberated towns of Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel. He saw the first emotions of people immediately after the de-occupation of Kyiv region, Kharkiv region, and Kherson region. The documentary is the author's view of the war from angles that you won't see in the news. Unique, rare, exclusive comments from those whose hands and minds are shaping our future victory. The main heroes of documentary are both ordinary Ukrainians who heroically show their strength and power every day for a year and high-ranking officials such as Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov, Major General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk. Initially, "Year" was a series of journalistic reports, later they were edited into a two-part film.

Hell Jumper

Courage, love and loss. Young people risk their lives with self-funded missions to rescue families in Ukraine’s frontline towns. Told through their own words and unique first-person footage.

Kherson: Human Safari

Kherson, Ukraine's embattled city, has endured invasion, occupation, and liberation. On February 24, 2022, Russian tanks entered Kherson, leading to brutal occupation marked by violence. Despite being outnumbered, local defense forces resisted, and citizens protested under the slogan "Kherson is Ukraine!" An underground resistance formed, led by brave individuals like journalist Valentyna and others who risked arrest and torture to support the cause. After nine months, Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson, but Russian destruction left the city in chaos. Shelling and drone attacks became relentless, and in June 2023, a dam explosion flooded the city, causing further devastation. Despite these challenges, Kherson's spirit remained unbroken, with citizens embracing arts and resilience. By August 2024, drone attacks specifically targeted civilians, yet the city resisted, determined to rebuild and reclaim its identity, refusing to succumb to ruin.

War Note

Personal videos from the phones, camcorders, cameras and GoPros of Ukrainian soldiers are woven into a surreal journey to the frontline of the war with Russia. The film shows a bizarre world whose laws are quite different from what we are used to. The behaviour is different, the relationships unfold differently and the humour takes on different notes. The heroes wake up and fall asleep, rejoice and cry, always feeling that the recording may end at any moment.

Breaking Point: The War for Democracy in Ukraine

The film looks at people transformed by a democratic revolution, who give up their normal lives to fight a Russian invasion, in a war which has killed 10,000 and displaced 1.9 million Ukrainians.

Slava Ukraini

One year after the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy takes us to the heart of the combat through this war diary made during the second half of 2022. From Kharkiv and Bakhmut to Kherson, in the aftermath of the city’s liberation, this documentary bears witness to the ravages of war through the testimonies of soldiers, chronicles of the front and portraits of civilians, and shares with us the struggle of the Ukrainian people.

Life to the Limit

From the Revolution of Dignity to full-scale war: successful Ukrainian film producers took up arms to defend the country and cameras to record the gruesome reality. From the fragments of memories and their own film archive, veterans Pavlo and Yurko assemble a mosaic of the causes and consequences of today's Russian-Ukrainian war - from the end of 2013 to today. The authors went to the front as volunteers, visited the hotspots of Donbas, created the home-made drone "Furia", which is now named after one of the best air reconnaissance units. And all this time they continued to create in order to show the world the truth about the terrible war that became possible in the 21st century.

In Ukraine

Bombed-out streets, destroyed Russian tanks, evening meals in an Underground repurposed into a shelter. Image by image, the directors push beyond easily reproducible images of war to enter the reality the country has experienced since February 24, 2022.

Our War

Between February and April 2025, filmmakers Bernard-Henri Lévy and Marc Roussel filmed the Pokrovsk and Soumy fronts in eastern Ukraine, following the fighters of the Anne de Kyiv Brigade, armed by France. They filmed the daily lives of the inhabitants, bombarded by Russian forces terrorizing civilians on the eve of possible negotiations. They interview President Zelenskyy, who is reluctant to travel to Washington, and then watch the rebroadcast of the meeting with Ukrainian soldiers in a bunker. For the real heroes are the anonymous fighters and civilians who hold their heads high in the face of adversity and suffering, and who are filmed on a daily basis. The final part of Lévy’s “Ukrainian Quartet”, Our War is a diary, peppered with flashbacks in which the author recalls the high points of this war that began in 2014.

Stronger than Arms

"Stronger than Arms", is the history that heats our hearts up with the memory of events and people, who from the time of Euromaidan to the war in the East were building a new Ukraine.

King Lear: How We Looked for Love During the War

Due to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, tens of thousands of Ukrainians, fleeing the war, found refuge in Uzhhorod in western Ukraine. The local director decides to attract non-professional actors -displaced people - in bringing his dream into life - to stage the King Lear play. The theatrical performance helps them find themselves and their purpose in a new world where there is war, and the director finds an answer to the eternal question of what love is and why this world should not perish.

Call Sign "Banderas"

In the autumn of 2014, in the ATO zone, an intelligence group headed by experienced captain Anton Saienko (called by nickname "Banderas") tries to prevent sabotage and neutralize the Russian saboteur.

Who are we? Psychoanalysis of Ukrainians

A film about the collective psychological traumas of Ukrainians.

Searching for Nika

Returning to Kyiv to search for his missing dog during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, director Stas Kapralov documents his journey as he joins forces with volunteers and becomes part of a movement to rescue animals caught in the crossfire of war.

Superpower

Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman’s documentary, shot just before and after Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24th February 2022, and featuring several interviews with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Fugue

A man hikes through late-winter woods. Russia invades Ukraine. It’s difficult to reconcile the scales of action described by those sentences, but this difficulty is what John Gianvito dwells on in his new video. It may simply be that this is a diary, movingly plain and provisional in construction, which recounts what its author did for a few months last year: he watched a war on the internet and went outside. Even if that’s true, such a description makes Gianvito’s images seem less strange than they are

In the Rearview

A Polish vehicle traverses the roads of Ukraine. On board, people are evacuated following the Russian invasion. This van becomes a fragile and transitory refuge, a zone of confidences and confessions of exiles who have only one objective, to escape the war.

From Russia with Lev

A documentary exploring Lev Parnas' involvement in the Trump-Ukraine scandal that resulted in the former president's impeachment, detailing Parnas' unexpected entanglement with Trump and Giuliani, leading to his incarceration.

Sniper: The White Raven

Mykola is an eccentric pacifist who wants to be useful to humanity. When the war begins in Donbas, Mykola’s naive world is collapsing as the militants kill his pregnant wife and burn his home to the ground. Recovered, he makes a cardinal decision and gets enlisted in a sniper company. Having met his wife’s killers, he emotionally breaks down and arranges “sniper terror” for the enemy.

This Rain Will Never Stop

This Rain Will Never Stop takes the audience on a powerful, visually arresting journey through humanity’s endless cycle of war and peace. The film follows 20-year-old Andriy Suleyman as he tries to secure a sustainable future while navigating the human toll of armed conflict. From the Syrian civil war to strife in Ukraine, Andriy’s existence is framed by the seemingly eternal flow of life and death.

Animals in War

Animals in War is a poignant anthology film inspired by true stories of animals impacted by the war in Ukraine. A collaboration between Ukrainian and international artists — including actor and activist Sean Penn — the film is a haunting yet captivating call for global awareness and empathy.

Checkpoint Zoo

Checkpoint Zoo documents a daring rescue led by a heroic team of zookeepers and volunteers, who risked their lives to save thousands of animals trapped in a zoo behind enemy lines in the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

Liturgy of Anti-Tank Obstacles

Reality in Ukraine was divided into two periods - before the war and after. Every citizen tries to be useful in this national resistance. Ukrainians change their professions and adapt to the needs of wartime. In art workshops, sculptors make anti-tank obstacles. Silent figures of Ukrainian figures, angels, Cossacks and multiple copies of Jesus Christ, like a terracotta army, froze in anticipation of new creations. Masters weld metal defenses for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The First Code

This story is a journey through time, starting from the 1950s with the creation of the first computer by Ukrainian engineers, and continuing until the present day when the IT sector has become not only a powerful industry but also an important front in the war against Russia.

The Way of Generations

Thi is the story of a Kyiv boy who lives his life believing that the problems of his country do not interest him. However, everything changes when he meets in a dream a Ukrainian warrior who comes to Nazar from the last century. Or maybe it was not a dream?

Year. Kharkiv Region.

Dmytro Komarov's documentary project The Year. Kharkiv Region. Dmytro Komarov will show Kharkiv in the first months of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops. Viewers will hear the stories of people who found themselves in the epicentre of the brutal attacks: at the air defence base destroyed by a Russian missile, in the residential area of the city - Northern Saltivka - which was ravaged by shelling. The journalist will talk to those who played a key role in the liberation of the Kharkiv region. One of these people is Roman Hryshchuk, the commander of the 127th separate territorial defence brigade of Ukraine. He told us how the military practice of the past - using decoys in the form of dummies - helped to identify and destroy the occupiers. How did the full-scale war begin for Kharkiv? What plans did the enemy have for Kharkiv? What united people and gave them hope in the most difficult times? Find out in the documentary project "Year. Kharkiv Region".

U311 Cherkasy

The crew of Ukrainian NAVY minesweeper U311 "Cherkasy" is resisting seizure of the vessel by Russian army in Crimea in 2014.

Atlantis

A soldier suffering from PTSD befriends a young volunteer hoping to restore peaceful energy to a war-torn society.

Exchange

How to repay parental debt on the other side of the front line? Why would a doctor kill and when to believe the enemy? How is the war in eastern Ukraine different from any other war in the world? A war drama about the stories of two families, where adult men took up arms and thus crossed their destinies.

Crimea. As It Was

The film is a story about the officers, soldiers and seamen who did not betray their oath of loyalty to the people of Ukraine and their first hand accounts about Russia's invasion and annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. They continue to fulfill their military obligations on land, on sea and in the air today.

Stolen House

"Stolen House" is a documentary short film that follows the migration story of Mark, a Russian photographer, and Katya, a Ukrainian artist, to Argentina. Through narrations, staged scenes, and archival material, fragments of their lives, feelings, and motivations are explored.

Veselka: The Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the World

New York City's beloved Ukrainian restaurant Veselka is best known for its borscht and varenyky, but it has become a beacon of hope for Ukraine. As the second-generation owner Tom Birchard reluctantly retires after 54 years, his son Jason faces the pressures of stepping into his father’s shoes as the war in Ukraine impacts his family and staff.

Ukraine: Enemy in the Woods

A revealing and moving portrait of lives compromised by war, filmed exclusively by Ukrainian soldiers with extraordinary access to a tightly-controlled frontline.

I Did Not Want to Make a War Film

A full-scale invasion found the Kyiv director in a small Bedouin village in the Middle East. It was warm, safe, and unbearably far from home. Once the director had a prophetic dream. She decided to return to Kyiv, still the hostilities were unfolding. Despite the condemnation of relatives and the long journey, she finally managed to cross the threshold of her home. But the house itself has now become forever different.

Politzek, the voices that challenge the Kremlin

In Russia, criticizing the war in Ukraine or Vladimir Putin’s regime has become a crime. Thousands of ordinary citizens are being arrested, tried, and imprisoned. They are called “Politzek”: political prisoners. Filmed clandestinely over the course of more than a year, Politzek gives a platform to those who, despite the fear, continue to speak out against Putin’s repressive Russia. Through the intersecting stories of a teenager sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing the government on social media, a young artist jailed for placing anti-war stickers, a human rights activist, and two theater directors facing Kafkaesque trials, the film unveils the machinery of state repression in Russia. With rare footage, broken yet unyielding voices, this is a story of silenced resistance.

Out from the Ashes

Milena, a young woman from Ukraine, who along with her mother and grandmother (and cat), desperately struggle to escape their war- torn home while an army of supporters on the opposite side of the world fight to keep them safe. Milena survived the destruction of Mariupol, cowering for a month in the basement of a bombed-out building, watching her home and history burn. She managed to contact Ken Pontac, long-time Facebook friend and father figure. Their conversations bolstered Milena's spirits while Ken listened with growing apprehension.

Crimea. The Stolen Peninsula

Documentary film about war crime — annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.

Iron Butterflies

This lesson in political revelation focuses on the shooting down of the Malaysian passenger jet MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014. A meticulous, investigative exposé that lays bare the mechanisms of Russian warfare.

WORLD WAR CYBER

In 2022 Ukraine has become the proving ground for an arsenal of contemporary cyber warfare techniques from mobile applications, drones and satellites to bringing forth a shift in the economy of war through cryptocurrency. With civilians playing an active role in this war and enlisting in the so-called digital army, we have entered a gray zone of what constitutes a civilian and an active combatant. The “cyberwar” in Ukraine hasn‘t always been front and center in the news, but it‘s one of the things that might directly impact the West and the nature of future conflicts.

8th day of the war

The film takes place on the eighth day of Russia's war campaign in Ukraine. Eight Ukrainians residing in the Czech Republic – a businesswoman, cleaning ladies, construction workers, and bus drivers – make their own diary-like observations of the events in their homeland. They continue to bury themselves in their work, unable to afford to withdraw themselves from their current lives. In their minds, however, they've transported themselves hundreds of kilometers away, helping their fellow countrymen and women by any means necessary. They provide accommodation for refugees, scout for bulletproof vests, and call their loved ones who’ve taken shelter from falling bombs. They have a hectic and emotionally overwhelming 24 hours ahead of them. But it’s not the first 24 hours and it won’t be the last.