Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Docudays UA team has been participating in discussions at international platforms with a mission to educate people about the Russia-Ukraine war. Over time, these initiatives grew into a separate developing branch of our work. In order to make it easier to follow our dialogue with the global community, we will share the most important information in our new section of the website on Cultural Diplomacy.

On 17 October at 7:00 p.m. Dublin time, we invite you to the panel discussion Voices from Ukraine: War, Film, and Human Rights with Dar’ya Averchenko, Head of Communications at Docudays UA, as a guest speaker. Other speakers at the event are Mary Moynihan, writer, director, theatre and filmmaker, Artistic Director of Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality; Halyna Budilova, writer, member of Irish PEN; Alex Malyshenko, film journalist, deputy editor of Moviegram, program director of Mykolaichuk OPEN.

The discussion is planned as part of the fifth annual international Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival, which will be held on 13–22 October. The event brings together Dublin, Kerry, Donegal and Cork, and includes masterclasses, thematic discussions, theatre and musical performances, exhibitions, and literary events. In Solidarity: An International Celebration of Arts and Human Rights is this year’s thematic focus.

At Voices from Ukraine: War, Film, and Human Rights, Darya Averchenko will share the experience of our team and speak about how we have reconsidered Docudays UA’s work after February 24, 2022.

“For half a year after the full-scale invasion of russian troops, we put preparations for the festival on hold and took on a new project which we called the Ukraine War Archive. We collected testimonies and evidence of war crimes and structured them. We believed that these records would help restore justice and punish every member of the russian military who has committed a crime in Ukraine. It also allowed us to keep our team together while our team members were scattered as a result of evacuation across different countries, cities, and on different sides of the frontline. Thanks to the Ukraine War Archive, we did not only manage to stick together as a team, but also collected ourselves morally and mentally.

“In November last year, we dared to conduct a documentary weekend, and later also a full-fledged festival in June this year. We do it mainly to provide moral support to our audiences. To empower them to resist and continue our cultural and educational process,” clarifies Darya.

In addition, the panel discussion will include screenings of 20 Days in Mariupol by Mstyslav Chernov and a fragment of Friday, Saturday, Sunday, a film by Kateryna Hornostay about the film weekend organised by the Docudays UA team in November 2022.

“As an author, it’s more interesting for me to learn what the audience feels after watching. Especially since this will be the first screening abroad. Because films, especially documentaries, start living their own lives as soon as they’re completed, and the viewer becomes a co-participant, if not a co-creator of the film’s meanings from that moment on.

“I filmed Friday, Saturday, Sunday with an admiring gaze and attention to the people I respect who have been my friends for years. This is an extremely hard, critical moment in our lives. Even our everyday lives in the rear contains a deep and painful context of war. And for this reason, the people who continue organising festivals and making films surprise and amaze us even more. People who continue doing things which have seemingly lost their meaning since the full-scale invasion began. I’m happy that we’re returning to life-giving creativity and continuing to work in the field of our culture and identity,” emphasises Kateryna Hornostay.

Conor Fortune, Head of Communications and Events at Front Line Defenders and co-organiser of the Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival, says:

“Supporting and sharing the stories of human rights defenders at risk is at the heart of what Front Line Defenders does around the world, and Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion is one of the most shocking examples of how defending human rights comes at a price. In 2022 the war resulted in the killings of 50 Ukrainian human rights defenders – making it among the world’s most deadly contexts.

“Through it all, we have been struck by the tenacity and courage of Ukrainian human rights defenders, journalists and filmmakers, who have stayed resolute in reporting the truth and standing up for the human rights of ordinary Ukrainians. We are delighted that Docudays UA will be screening the harrowing film ‘20 Days in Mariupol’ for Irish audiences and will be joining us at the Festival to discuss the realities behind making and presenting films in the midst of a war.”

Darya Averchenko explains why it is important to communicate our position to European and global audiences:

“It seems to me that a significant part of the world considers that the Russian-Ukrainian war is already over. Many would rather not ask or hear about the reality of wartime. And it’s a perfectly understandable defensive response. So I want to find a certain humane way to direct the attention of Western audiences in the right direction. To communicate that life goes on in Ukraine despite the war. Economic, educational, cultural processes are not interrupted. We continue to resist as much as we can, each in our own place. And we need support from Ireland: weapons, humanitarian aid, programmes for working with refugees. All of this continues to be relevant to us. Unfortunately, nobody can say for sure when the war will end and when our need for support will finally be over.”

At the end of the panel discussion Voices from Ukraine: War, Film, and Human Rights, the organisers and participants will honour the memory of Ukrainian writer Viktoria Amelina, who spoke about ending the war in Ukraine at last year’s Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival and who was tragically killed in July this year by a russian missile strike in Kramatorsk.

See the full festival programme at this link.

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The Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival is an annual, international festival organised by Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality and Front Line Defenders, a Dublin based international organisation working to improve the security and protection of human rights defenders at risk, in partnership with Amnesty International, Fighting Words, Irish Council for Civil Liberties, National Women’s Council of Ireland, Trócaire, GOAL NextGen and Irish PEN.

Creative partners include Irish Modern Dance Theatre, dlr Mill Theatre Dundrum, Rathfarnham Castle, Rua Red South Dublin Arts Centre, Unapologetic, Quintessence Theatre Company, Dance Cork Firkin Crane, Capreal Productions, Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, Dublin City Council, EPIC Irish Emigration Museum, Project Arts Centre, Pearse Street Library, dlr Lexicon Library, The Complex, The Old Barracks Cahersiveen, Glebe House Donegal, Fidget Feet, Cashel Arts Festival, and Docudays UA.