We received 150 applications for the Civil Pitch 2.0 programme. The jury selected 4 projects that received not only grants for film production, but also mentoring support at all stages of their work. Please welcome the world premiere of the winning films at the 30th anniversary Hot Docs Film Festival in Canada!
All four short documentary projects tell stories about war and people from a unique perspective. "..Pavlo Dorohoi's 89 Days takes us into a Kharkiv subway-station-turned-bomb-shelter-turned-back-into-a-subway-station; in Under the Wing of a Night, director Lesia Diak immerses herself in 11-year-old Olesia's new life in Belgium as she waits for her father's nightly call from back home; Halyna Lavrynets's Guests from Kharkiv watches activist Nelia try to resettle city-dwellers into rural Ukrainian life; and Anastasiia Tykha's Our Robo Family celebrates the children's robotics and programming group Roboclub Vuhledar. Enjoy the freshest Ukrainian documentary talent of 2023!" comments Myrocia Watamaniuk, the Hot Docs Film Festival programmer.
Find the screening schedule, tickets, and other necessary details here. And in June, expect the Ukrainian premiere of the films at the anniversary Docudays UA.
"Civil Pitch 2.0 started at the end of 2021. We actively planned the workshops, took care of the applications, and were in constant contact with foreign tutors. A few days before the full-scale invasion, we were still planning the workshop programme and even hoped to bring our tutors to Kyiv. The very existence of us, of this workshop, and ultimately of this four films, seems like a miracle now, given everything that has happened and is happening. I am grateful to everyone who has supported us along the way: the programme team, tutors, donors, and, of course, the filmmakers and their crews who have worked hard on their projects.
When we resumed our activities under Civil Pitch 2.0 after the start of the full-scale invasion, we changed the project's slogan to "Cinema that brings victory closer." That was more than six months ago. Today, I don't know if cinema can really bring victory closer, but I do know that cinema can help us survive the most difficult events and make sense of them. I hope that Civil Pitch 2.0 films will allow both foreign and Ukrainian audiences to understand what is happening to us," adds Darya Bassel, the director of the DOCU/PRO Industry Platform.
Civil Pitch 2.0 winning films, which will be screened at Hot Docs
89 Days
Director – Pavlo Dorohoi
Since the first days of the war, the subway has become a bomb shelter for many Kharkiv residents. For two months, they have been equipping it for a more or less comfortable life. But the local government and the subway management want to vacate the subway of its residents and launch the transit network again.
Under the Wing of a Night
Director – Lesia Diak
11-year-old Olesia from Ukraine is growing up under the wing of her mother, away from home. Dance and touch are her ways to release anger and adjust to the reality of Brussels. Every evening Olesia waits for dad's call from Ukraine. The family's extreme closeness nurtures the strength of this young girl whose fragility is exposed to constant war-related anxiety after the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Lesia Diak is a Ukrainian documentary film director and producer. Having previously received a Master's degree in Communications, Lesia also graduated from the Serhiy Bukovsky Film Program in 2017. In 2022, she completed her studies at DocNomads, an international documentary film directing Master's program. Lesia is the author of several short documentaries selected for several international film festivals and primarily dedicated to trauma and healing experience. Her work-in-progress feature-length documentary debut Dad'sLullaby has received the award for best documentary film in post-production at Sarajevo Talents from the East and the post-production grant from IDFA Bertha Fund.
Guests from Kharkiv
Director – Halyna Lavrinets
Nelia is an owner of Omelko's House, a country house museum of folk domestic life in the village of Kozubivka, Poltava region. Nelia and her husband Oleksandr are helping relocated people who have fled from bombing and shelling attacks in Kharkiv to adapt in the village. They are becoming friends with one another.
Due to the war, Nelia is very anxious about famine. To help the displaced people from Kharkiv have enough food, she gives them a big garden patch and planting seeds, where they plant potatoes and vegetables.
Over time, it becomes evident that the people who moved here from the city are not ready for hard physical work on the land plot because they hope that the war will end soon. Without proper care, the planted harvest starts degrading. Will they be able to find a compromise, save the vegetable garden and their relationships?
Halyna Lavrinets is a filmmaker, culture manager, and producer. She has been a member of the Ukrainian Guild of Directors and the Ukrainian Film Academy since 2019, as well as a member of the # BABYLON'13 Creative Association of Ukrainian Documentary Filmmakers since 2015. 
Our Robo Family
Director – Anastasiia Tykha
With the full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine, twelve-year-old Mykyta together with his parents and younger brother, had to flee their home in Vuhledar, a small mining town in Donetsk Oblast. Having settled at a new place, they put all their strength into resuming the operation of their main family work, a club for children who are interested in robotics and programming.
While preparing for the main event, the World Robot Olympiad, Mykyta and his team partner Oleksii are going through a lot of trial and error. But despite everything, they actively move forward, proving that hard work towards your goal with a true passion for it can help you get through the most difficult times.
In 2018, Anastasiia Tykha graduated from the Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theater, Cinema and Television, the Documentary Film Department. In 2018, Anastasiia became a fellow of the Gaude Polonia scholarship program of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland and joined the Doc.Pro documentary film department at the Wajda Film School in Warsaw.
She has been working in the Ukrainian film industry as a script supervisor and 2nd AD. Since 2019, Anastasiia has been a program director of KINOKO, the first Ukrainian film festival of the art of cinematography. Anastasiia is a member of the Directors Guild of Ukraine. She is also a part of the Babylon'13 film collective.__________
These films were developed as part of the project “Civil Pitch 2.0” under the USAID/ENGAGE activity, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Pact. The contents of these films are the sole responsibility of Pact and its implementing partners and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
These films received financial support from Goethe-Institut.
