May 17th – 21st 2024
Photography poster by Sara Sahores
Kyiv Critics‘ Week is an international film festival created to introduce Ukrainian viewers to the best new films selected by professional Ukrainian film critics.
This year, KCW and De Balie have teamed up to bring hidden gems and the latest successes of Ukrainian cinema to Amsterdam. The program features specials centered around the theme of “Double Exposure: Ukraine in the 90s” and provides a platform for conversations about Ukraine’s past and present, moving beyond the omnipresent war reports and Soviet-era prejudices.
NOTE: This page describes the program of 2024. For the Kyiv Critic’s Week x NL 2025 program, information and tickets, please visit: https://debalie.nl/kyiv-critics-week-x-nl/
Double Exposure: Ukraine in the 90s
The 90s nostalgia is in full swing, with its fashion, music, and blockbuster remakes. But for Western Europe, this decade brought an utterly different experience than it did for the countries behind the ‘Iron Curtain’. Being haunted by the ghosts of the Soviet past, devastated by the decade’s omnipresent poverty and steep rise in crime, Ukraine was in the process of reinventing itself and gaining political agency.
“Double Exposure: Ukraine in the 90s” is a collaboration between De Balie and a group of Ukrainian film critics who are members of the curatorial team behind the renowned Ukrainian film festival – Kyiv Critics` Week (KCW). It presents a window into a little-discussed period of Ukrainian history in the West, as most of the talks and studies focus either on the Soviet period or the period after Euromaidan.
Between May 17th and 21st 2024, we will showcase films either shot in 1990s Ukraine or depicting this period of national awakening, handpicked by Ukrainian critics Hanna Datsiuk, Serhii Ksaverov, Daria Badior, and our cinema curator. Each screening will be followed by a discussion between one of the KCW curators and a Dutch film critic, with the closing event featuring a live music performance revolving around the life and work of Sergei Parajanov.
In this way De Balie facilitates a space for conversation about the Ukrainian past and present beyond the omnipresent war-reports or Soviet era commonplaces. This space is introduced through screenings of hidden gems and newest successes of Ukrainian cinema.
The link between KCW and De Balie was facilitated by Tetiana Mala, an independent Ukrainian cultural worker, who also serves as the project manager for this collaboration.
Scroll down to see the full programme from May 17th – 21st.
Trailer Kyiv Critics’ Week
Screenings
What at first glance seems like another 90s coming-of-age story about a young woman facing her parents’ painful divorce, is placed against the authentic backdrop of the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Ukraine was going through the equally painful process of becoming an independent country. The film was screened at Berlinale 2023 in Panorama section.
An escaped prisoner seeks refuge inside a Soviet monument, where he gets visited by a woman who dreams of a new life. They fall in love, but chance intervenes when the monument needs to be repainted, forcing his return to prison. Upon a miraculous recovery from an almost lethal mistake, he faces the grim reality
After the mysterious death of his brother, an ambitious man continues his case on the Chernobyl investigation, however, on his way to the top there is a hindrance – he starts to become a werewolf. Amulet blends elements of doppelganger and werewolf genres within a narrative set in Kyiv during the resurgence of national consciousness.
This richly ornamented story of the rise and fall of a petty gangster, told in an unsentimental manner, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2021. It became the first Ukrainian film to tackle the anarchy and unlawfulness of the 90s, presenting itself as a story of a lost generation. This screening is presented as
In Ukraine, 1996, just 5 months before the moratorium on the death penalty, two old friends—a police detective and a forensic psychiatrist—investigate the murder of their colleague. La Palisiada was nominated for the European Discovery Prize by the European Film Academy. This screening is presented as part of the KCW x De Balie collaboration, taking place from
An intellectual rendered superfluous in the new capitalist landscape is compelled to take on a series of mundane odd jobs merely to survive. Consequently, it’s hardly a shock when his unfaithful wife eventually leaves him for another man. Disheartened by these events, our protagonist Anatoli decides to commit suicide by hiring someone else to organize
In this unique hybrid event a trio of musicians perform alongside the moving images of ‘Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors,’ the cinematic masterpiece by Sergei Parajanov, widely recognized as one of the greatest filmmakers in cinema history. This event is presented as part of the KCW x De Balie collaboration, taking place from May 17th to May
