Introduction: The Birth of a New Wave and the Architects Behind It

In the turbulent years following Ukraine’s 2014 Revolution of Dignity, a cinematic renaissance began to stir. This “Ukrainian New Wave,” born from profound socio-political upheaval, marked a definitive break from the aesthetic and ideological constraints of the Soviet era. Fueled by a surge of creative liberty and new state financing opportunities, a generation of filmmakers who came of age in an independent Ukraine finally had the resources to articulate a new national vision. They sought to explore, challenge, and redefine what it means to be Ukrainian in the 21st century, creating a body of work characterized by its formal daring and thematic urgency.  

At the heart of this movement is Directory Films, a production company founded in 2012 with the explicit mission to cultivate this new generation and produce projects with a “strong message” that could resonate globally. More than just a production house, Directory Films has positioned itself as a key architect of this new cinematic identity, launching the powerful debut features of visionary directors and championing stories that grapple with the nation’s complex past and uncertain future.  

To understand the scope and soul of this movement, one need only look at the films Directory Films has championed. A curated triptych of their work—Marysia Nikitiuk’s When the Trees Fall (2018), Ivan Kravchyshyn’s The Three of Us (2025), and Iryna Tsilyk’s Commemoration (2013)—reveals a comprehensive and deeply resonant exploration of the Ukrainian struggle for identity. Together, these films form a powerful narrative tapestry, examining this struggle on three distinct but interconnected planes: the Personal, the National, and the Ancestral. They are not just movies; they are cinematic declarations of a nation actively forging its own story.

When the Trees Fall (2018): Magical Realism as an Act of Rebellion

Marysia Nikitiuk’s audacious debut feature, When the Trees Fall (Коли падають дерева), is a potent and visceral exploration of the personal struggle for freedom, articulated through a bold and lyrical cinematic language. It’s a film that pulses with the raw energy of rebellion, capturing the suffocating weight of tradition and the desperate, often violent, yearning to break free. The film immediately established Nikitiuk as a formidable voice in the Ukrainian New Wave, a filmmaker unafraid to blend the grim realities of provincial life with the untamed beauty of magical realism.

Plot & Character Deep Dive: The Caged Bird’s Song

The story is set in the small, provincial city of Lozova and centers on the forbidden love between the rebellious teenager Larysa (a mesmerizing Anastasiya Pustovit) and a handsome young criminal known as Scar (Maksym Samchyk). Their passionate affair unfolds against a backdrop of societal judgment and familial oppression. Larysa is ostracized by her conservative village, a world governed by the iron will of its older women. Her grandmother, a formidable and unloving matriarch, beats her and calls her a “slut,” while her own mother, psychologically broken by the recent death of her husband, is too weak to offer any support, more concerned with what the neighbors will say.  

The narrative is ingeniously filtered through the eyes of Larysa’s five-year-old cousin, Vitka (the astonishingly captivating Sofia Halaimova). It is Vitka’s innocent, imaginative perspective that transforms the film from a straightforward social drama into something far more ethereal and profound. As director Marysia Nikitiuk herself explained, the magical realism stems from this childlike viewpoint: “Everything she cannot understand clearly she explain[s] in her magic way, using her imagination”. Vitka sees a white horse roaming the countryside and dreams of giant vegetables, her fantasies providing a poetic counterpoint to the harshness of Larysa’s reality. This narrative choice makes the film a complex tale of trauma and rebellion viewed through a prism of childhood wonder, where the lines between dream and reality blur into a singular, intoxicating vision.  

Cinematic Craft: A Visually Exquisite and Sophisticated Vision

The film’s aesthetic is nothing short of breathtaking, a testament to the masterful work of Polish cinematographers Michał Englert and Mateusz Wichłacz. Critics have rightly described the visuals as “exquisite and sophisticated,” with a distinct “Slavonic touch” that evokes the work of masters like Andrei Tarkovsky. The visual language is built on a series of striking contrasts: the “sensual natural surroundings” of the Ukrainian countryside, teeming with life and color, are juxtaposed with the “sullen, grim town” that seeks to suffocate it. This visual dichotomy mirrors the central conflict between Larysa’s untamed spirit and the repressive social order.  

Nikitiuk and her cinematographers employ a rich symbolic vocabulary. The outsized presence of nature—heavy flowers, dense vegetation, surreally large fruits—comes to represent a wild, untamable fertility that the village elders fear and seek to control. Furthermore, the film is preoccupied with observing its characters through “glass, windows, half-light and reflections, gaps and cracks”. This recurring visual motif creates a sense of liminality, as if we are peering into a dream world that is only half-real. This visual distancing forces the audience to piece together perspectives, sharing in the characters’ fragmented and often obscured view of their own lives.  

Critical & Festival Reception: A Celebrated Debut

When the Trees Fall premiered to widespread acclaim, announcing the arrival of a major new talent. The film was a sensation at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival, where it won an incredible seven awards, including Best Debut (with a €50,000 prize), the Panorama Audience Award, and three separate awards from film critic associations.  

The Hollywood Reporter hailed it as a film “bursting with audacity, flair and energetic promise,” while the San Francisco Chronicle celebrated its “deliriously lyrical, sexy fable,” noting that “the final frames are breathtaking”.  

While some critics, like Ola Salwa for Cineuropa, found it lacked a certain “substance and gravity,” they still praised Nikitiuk’s immense skill and talent as a director. The film holds a 5.7/10 on Filmaffinity and a more favorable 7.1/10 on IMDb, reflecting its powerful, if divisive, impact. Its status within the modern Ukrainian canon is undeniable; it has been listed as one of the best films of the 2010s by outlets like MovieWeb and celebrated by  

Vogue Ukraine as a film that will make you “fall in love with modern Ukrainian cinema”.  

Larysa’s deeply personal struggle against a rigid, traditional, and abusive authority is more than just a coming-of-age story; it functions as a powerful feminist allegory for Ukraine itself. The oppressive forces in the film are overwhelmingly embodied by the older women, the matriarchs who enforce the patriarchal social order and punish Larysa for her defiance. Her grandmother and mother beat her, shame her, and attempt to force her into a loveless marriage, trapping her within what Nikitiuk visually represents as a prison of social expectation. This narrative of confinement and rebellion resonates deeply with Ukraine’s national story, particularly in the post-Maidan era. Larysa’s body and spirit become a battleground for control, mirroring Ukraine’s own historical and ongoing struggle against oppressive, patriarchal foreign powers that have sought to dominate its land and dictate its identity. Her refusal to submit, her embrace of a wild, untamed love, and her desperate fight for a future on her own terms become a microcosm of the national spirit of resistance. In this light, the film’s magical realism is not mere fantasy; it is the necessary artistic language of a nation imagining a future free from the grim, suffocating “realism” of its past.  

The Three of Us (2025): Forging a Nation in the Crucible of a Ukrainian Western

Where When the Trees Fall explores the battle for the individual soul, Ivan Kravchyshyn’s The Three of Us (Троє) scales up the conflict to the national stage. An ambitious and rugged historical action film, it reframes a pivotal moment in the Ukrainian War of Independence (1917-1921) through the lens of a classic genre: the Western. In doing so, the film doesn’t just recount history; it actively engages in the process of myth-making, crafting a foundational story of heroism, betrayal, and unlikely brotherhood that speaks as much to Ukraine’s present as it does to its past.

Plot & Character Dynamics: From Enemies to Brothers-in-Arms

The film’s premise is a classic genre setup. Set during the chaotic aftermath of the Russian Revolution, two Makhnovist rebels—part of Nestor Makhno’s anarchist peasant army—plan to rob a Red Army convoy transporting a large sum of money. The heist, however, goes disastrously wrong. The convoy is a trap, designed by the Bolsheviks to eliminate the insurgents. In the bloody aftermath, only three men survive: the two Makhnovists and their prisoner, a captured Red Army commander.  

From this crucible of violence, the film’s central drama emerges. The three men, starting as “irreconcilable enemies,” are forced to rely on one another to survive. Their journey through a war-torn landscape transforms them into pobratymamy—blood brothers—united in a common fight against the encroaching “Red Plague”. The cast, led by Artemiy Egorov, Roman Yasinovsky, and Alina Kovalenko, is tasked with embodying these archetypal figures, whose shifting allegiances form the narrative core of this Ukrainian epic.  

Production & Ambitious Scope: History as an Action Set-Piece

The ambitious scale of The Three of Us is evident in its production. The project was a winner of a competitive selection process by Derzhkino (the Ukrainian State Film Agency), securing significant state funding that underscores its perceived national importance. Director Ivan Kravchyshyn made extensive use of historical locations, including the magnificent 16th-century Starokostiantyniv Castle, which served as a key filming backdrop. The production also involved over a hundred local residents as extras, a choice that grounds the epic, mythic story in the reality of the very land it depicts.

Kravchyshyn’s stated goal was to create a “resourceful” film, one that avoids simple tragedy and instead provides its audience with a “feeling that the struggle was not in vain”. This intention is reflected in the film’s blend of genres; it is at once a serious historical drama, a thrilling action film, and, at times, even a comedy. This tonal complexity aims to capture the multifaceted nature of historical struggle, where moments of levity and humanity persist even amid the horrors of war.  

Reception & Genre-Bending: A Ukrainian Western

The film’s most fascinating aspect is its self-conscious positioning as a “Ukrainian Western”. This genre choice is a deliberate and powerful act of cultural reframing. While comprehensive critical reception data is sparse—a common challenge for Ukrainian films navigating a long and difficult path to distribution—the available 6.1 rating on Kinopoisk suggests a mixed but intriguing reception. The film’s journey itself, with conflicting release dates noted across different sources (some citing 2018, others a premiere in 2025), highlights the precarious and often-delayed distribution landscape that Ukrainian filmmakers must navigate.  

The decision to frame this historical drama as a Western is a profound political and cultural statement. The Western is a quintessentially American genre, built on foundational myths of frontier justice, rugged individualism, and the righteous struggle of settlers against a lawless or tyrannical force. By adopting its conventions, Kravchyshyn is not merely making an action film; he is consciously crafting a new national myth for modern Ukraine. He recasts the early 20th-century Ukrainian freedom fighters as heroic cowboys, defending their homeland against an invading force. The Red Army, in this context, becomes the equivalent of the corrupt railroad barons or outlaw gangs of American lore—an outside power seeking to impose its will through violence. This is a potent act of cinematic de-Russification. It seizes a historical narrative long suppressed or distorted by Soviet and Russian historiography and reclaims it. By using a globally understood genre, The Three of Us transforms a specific, regional conflict into a universal story of freedom against oppression, making a powerful statement about Ukraine’s long and ongoing fight for sovereignty.

Commemoration (2013): The Poetic Weight of Ancestral Memory

Before Iryna Tsilyk received global acclaim for her Sundance-winning documentary The Earth Is Blue as an Orange, she crafted a quiet, poetic short film that laid the thematic groundwork for her entire filmography. Commemoration (Помин), produced by Directory Films in 2012, is the ancestral pillar of this cinematic triptych. It is a lyrical and introspective meditation on the ways memory, heritage, and the physical landscape of the past converge to shape our present and future. Though only 24 minutes long, its emotional weight is immense.  

Plot & Thematic Analysis: A Journey into the Past

Based on Tsilyk’s own short story, the film follows a simple yet profound narrative: a young woman (Toma Vashkevichiute) and her fiancé travel to a rural khutor, or farmstead, to finalize the sale of her late grandfather’s house, which she has inherited. The journey is framed as a “painful” and difficult task, but it quickly evolves into something more. As the protagonist wanders the land of her childhood, the “nostalgic memories” it evokes begin to provide “answers to troubling questions regarding her future”. The act of confronting her heritage becomes the key to navigating her own life path. The central theme is clear and beautifully rendered: one cannot move forward without first reckoning with where one has come from.  

A Director’s Emerging Voice

Commemoration is a crucial early work that showcases the signature elements of Tsilyk’s directorial style. Her deep humanism, her poetic sensibility, and her focus on the quiet, “invisible changes” that shape our inner lives are all present. The film demonstrates a remarkable confidence, finding profound meaning in small gestures and the quiet dialogue between a person and a place. It directly connects to her later, celebrated work like  

The Earth Is Blue as an Orange, which also masterfully explores how a family uses the act of creation—in that case, making a film—to process the trauma of living in a warzone. This thematic consistency across her filmography reveals a director with a singular, compassionate vision focused on resilience and the enduring power of memory.  

Festival Recognition and Legacy

Despite its short format, Commemoration garnered significant recognition, signaling its importance within the burgeoning Ukrainian New Wave. The film received a Diploma from the Ecumenical Jury at the prestigious Kyiv International Film Festival “Molodist” and, notably, the International Andrei and Arseniy Tarkovsky Award—a significant honor that explicitly acknowledges the film’s deep artistic and spiritual resonance. Its inclusion in the “Ukrainian New Wave. Romantique” film almanac officially cemented its place in the canon of this vital movement, underscoring its cultural significance. The film was produced with a budget of ₴1,223,199, entirely funded by the state, further highlighting the national investment in these new cinematic voices.  

In Commemoration, the physical landscape is not merely a backdrop; it is a living character, the repository of ancestral memory and, by extension, national trauma. The grandfather’s house and the surrounding farmstead are imbued with the weight of history. The protagonist’s journey is a dialogue with this place, and her decision about whether to sell the house becomes a profound question about her relationship with her own heritage. In a country where territory, borders, and historical sites are constantly contested and under threat, the film makes a quiet but powerful argument that the land itself holds the key to identity and survival. This theme of land-as-memory is a cornerstone of post-colonial and national identity cinema worldwide. Tsilyk masterfully deploys it here, transforming a simple family drama into a poignant national allegory. The act of “commemoration” is not just about remembering the dead; it’s about understanding that the soil beneath one’s feet contains the stories that make a future possible.

Ferdosa Abdi’s Final Take: A Cinema of Resilience, Redefinition, and Hope

Viewed together, When the Trees Fall, The Three of Us, and Commemoration offer more than just a cross-section of Directory Films’ impressive slate; they present a stunningly coherent vision of a national cinema in the process of defining itself. This triptych—exploring identity through the lenses of the Personal, the National, and the Ancestral—reveals the artistic breadth and thematic depth of the Ukrainian New Wave. It is a cinema forged in the crucible of revolution and war, one that is fiercely engaged in the act of cultural reclamation.

Based on this trio of films, the defining traits of this movement become clear. First is its stylistic diversity. From the magical realism of Nikitiuk to the genre-bending Western of Kravchyshyn and the poetic lyricism of Tsilyk, there is no single aesthetic. Instead, there is a shared commitment to finding the right cinematic language for each story, a language that can break free from past conventions. Second is the reclamation of national narratives. These films actively de-colonize Ukrainian history and identity, whether by reframing historical conflicts or by grounding universal human struggles in a uniquely Ukrainian context. Third is the powerful use of strong, resilient characters—often women, as in the work of Nikitiuk and Tsilyk—as allegories for the nation’s own endurance. Larysa’s personal rebellion and the quiet strength of  

Commemoration‘s protagonist are microcosms of a larger, collective spirit.

Finally, this is a cinema profoundly engaged with memory and freedom. Each film, in its own way, argues that the path to a free future lies in a courageous and honest confrontation with the past. This is a cinema of resilience, redefinition, and ultimately, hope. Yet, this renaissance is tragically precarious. With state funding drying up due to the ongoing full-scale war and with countless talented filmmakers and artists forced to flee the country, the future of this new wave is uncertain. The work of production houses like Directory Films is therefore more vital than ever. These are not just films; they are cultural documents, acts of defiance, and indispensable artifacts of a sovereign identity. They are a declaration to the world that Ukrainian culture is vibrant, powerful, and will endure.