Karina Kostyna

When reformed ex-smuggler Pamfir returns home to his village on the Ukrainian border after working abroad for several years, he’s determined to earn an honest living and set a good example for his beloved teenage son Nazar. But in a town where corruption runs deep and crime and religion are inextricably linked, his plan is quickly thwarted when Nazar sets fire to the local church in a misguided effort to keep him at home. To pay for the damage, Pamfir must take on one last job for a crime syndicate operating a risky smuggling venture in a place where all the rules have changed.

In 1960s Soviet Ukraine, the population lives under KGB surveillance and Soviet propaganda. But a small group of young photographers in the second city of Kharkiv want artistic freedom and risk Soviet censors to create a new photographic language.

This documentary about the Zhovten Cinema in Kyiv, which was constructed in 1931 and is one of the city's oldest, tells about how such spaces can function as cultural gathering points and the heritage of a country. The Zhovten Cinema in Kyiv is a unique opportunity to understand how a cinema can symbolize cultural resistance and identity. Zhovten (the name means October) becomes a cultural beacon and refuge, where the film becomes a bridge between past and present and local and global perspectives.

Set by a beautiful river canyon in Western Ukraine, a pacifist community with unique religious beliefs, sees their peaceful way of life gradually distressed by regular floods and eventually an unexpected war.