Competition Programme: Ukrainian Animation

In support of Ukraine, we invite you to come and discover the Ukrainian animation industry and its creators! For this year’s festival, we have selected the most interesting short animated films by Ukrainian creators and put together a competition programme, with the winner being selected by an international jury.
Films in the original language with English and Lithuanian subtitles.

N-13
Jury:
Baptiste Salvan

Baptiste Salvan

France

A former student at La Fémis, Baptiste began his career at Prima Linea Productions (on The Most Precious of Cargoes by M. Hazanavicius) before launching Pentacle Productions in 2020. Then he launched the Pentacle Distribution label, through which he distributes about ten new short films each year. Pentacle Distribution currently represents around fifty titles, including the Cristal for Best Short Film at Annecy 2025. Baptiste is also acting as executive producer.

Petrit Gora

Petrit Gora

Sweden

Petrit Gora is a Kosovo-born artist based in Uppsala, Sweden. He studied graphic design and photography before serving as Art Director of the Anibar festival for ten years, where he also helped found Kosovo’s sole animation academy. In 2022, Petrit became director of the REX Animation Festival in Stockholm, where he is currently driving its growth for its twelfth edition.

Skaistė Marčienė

Skaistė Marčienė

Lithuania

Skaistė Marčienė is a curator, cultural project organizer, and director of the Pranas Domšaitis Gallery, part of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art.

Participants:
Danylo Okulov

Danylo Okulov

Germany

Danylo is a Ukrainian media artist based in Potsdam, Germany. Trained as a sound engineer and film sound designer, he is also known among his peers for relentlessly learning and exploring adjacent media and techniques. Danylo does freelance gigs as a full-cycle sound guy and documentary cameraman, works at the media lab at Film University Babelsberg as a Unity XR programmer, and experiments with his own developments in the fields of hardware, software, and games.

Sofia Zorska

Sofia Zorska

Ukraine

Sofia is a Ukrainian storyboard artist. She's experienced in a wide variety of 2D and 3D animated projects — TV series, commercials, short films, and feature films. Her greatest drive, both in professional and personal work, is a person-to-person connection created through visual storytelling.

Viktoria Filmako (Cherniaha)

Viktoria Filmako (Cherniaha)

Ukraine

Viktoria Filmako is an independent artist and animation director from Ukraine currently based in Switzerland. After working for several years in the field of architecture and cinema she felt the need to realize herself in the world of animation.

Anastasiia Shtolko

Anastasiia Shtolko

Ukraine

Ukrainian film director and screenwriter. She is studying Film and Television Directing at the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts. She has completed internships at several film production companies, gaining hands-on experience in film production.

Yanush Nehel

Yanush Nehel

Ukraine

Yanush Nehel works in the fields of animation directing and animation. In 2025, graduated from the I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television.

Hanna Beskrovna

Hanna Beskrovna

Ukraine

Ukrainian animated film director, screenwriter, puppeteer, and voice actor. She studied documentary filmmaking and went on to found the children's animation studio 'Magic Lantern' (2010–2020). Since 2022, she has been developing her own animated projects, including the puppet series 'Friendly Worms' and the anthology series 'Happy Songs.' The latter features short musical animated films such as 'Baby Poop-Poop-Poop,' 'Borscht or Fried Shoes,' 'Subway Under the Chicken Coop,' and 'Gas Inside Us.'

Screenings

Friday, 09/11, 15:30 · ArlekinasOriginal language with English and Lithuanian subtitles
Saturday, 09/12, 11:00 · ArlekinasOriginal language with English and Lithuanian subtitles
Sunday, 09/13, 16:30 · ArlekinasOriginal language with English and Lithuanian subtitles | Free entry for Ukrainians
Ember
Ember

2026 · Ukraine, Luxembourg · 12 min

An elderly couple is trapped in their village near Kyiv after it falls under Russian occupation. When a fire destroys their home, they are forced to seek refuge with their neighbours and find a way to escape.

Director:
Vladyslav Kalenskyi
Producer:
Ira Yeroshko
Misundershood
Misundershood

2025 · Ukraine · 7 min

A deeply personal story about war seen through the eyes of a vulnerable young man. Oleksa experiences the world with greater sensitivity and intensity than those around him, living at his own pace and in his own silence. But war ruthlessly shatters his fragile inner balance.

Director:
Iryna Sosimovych
Screenwriter:
Iryna Sosimovych
Producer:
Mira Oyetoro
Company:
Salt Cinema Productions
Kyiv Cake
Kyiv Cake

2025 · Estonia, Ukraine · 22 min

Set in present-day Ukraine, the film follows a child born into a poor family. The parents do everything they can to survive, but just as their struggle reaches its breaking point, a new danger emerges.

Director:
Mykyta Lyskov
Screenwriter:
Mykyta Lyskov
Producer:
Kalev Tamm
Company:
Eesti Joonisfilm
?
?

2026 · Ukraine · 5 min

Yellow Angel Cor settles into a new home. One night, he is awakened by the sound of a ukulele played by the Blue Angel, Dium. As they exchange messages through the clouds, a bond begins to grow between them. Over time, Dium becomes increasingly absorbed in rehearsals with his band, and the two gradually drift apart. When Cor learns that Dium is about to leave, he watches the approaching train from his last remaining cloud. With only one chance left, he must finally say what has remained unspoken for so long.

Director:
Anastasia Shtolko
Borscht, or Fried Shoes
Borscht, or Fried Shoes

2025 · Ukraine · 2 min

After discovering his fellow carrots enslaved, the Carrot Warrior performs a magical ritual and urges them to recognize that they have no rights in this cruel world. Who is he—a half-mad Don Quixote rebelling against the age-old divide between plants and animals? Or a warrior-prophet leading others towards salvation across an open field of possibilities? The answer is left to the viewer.

Director:
Hanna Beskrovna
Company:
ABVI Animation
I Met Papo And Pepe
I Met Papo And Pepe

2026 · Switzerland · 8 min

A lost, nameless girl, struggling with the challenges of forced migration, finds freedom on a journey into the magical past of an elderly Caribbean immigrant named Papo.

Director:
Viktoria Filmako
Producer:
Tina Ohnmacht
Company:
Lucerne School of Design, Film and Art / MA Animation
Are You Sleeping?
Are You Sleeping?

2026 · Poland · 9 min

Night. Air raid sirens. Insomnia. A young woman returns to a city she barely recognizes, confronting the changes in both the place and its people.

Director:
Olha Cherpak
Screenwriter:
Olha Cherpak
Producer:
Agata Golańska
Company:
The Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz
Is Present
Is Present

2026 · Ukraine · 4 min

Every day in Thin's life is the same. Yet she isn't alone. Invisible to everyone else, Hole silently follows her every step. It seems like just another ordinary day until the sound of tearing paper interrupts Thin's evening.

Director:
Sofia Zorska
My Grandmother is a Skydiver
My Grandmother is a Skydiver

2025 · Germany, Ukraine · 13 min

Alfyia, a joyful young woman in 1960s Central Asia, is an avid skydiver and studies to become a midwife when she receives an extraordinary phone call from her granddaughter in 2022. Her granddaughter is worried about her safety amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In this conversation across time and space, the granddaughter tries to restore and reinterpret her family history and ethnic identity, break the cycle of intergenerational trauma, and reflect on the meaning of human life.

Director:
Polina Piddubna
Screenwriter:
Polina Piddubna
Producer:
Polina Piddubna
Company:
Filmuniversity Babelsberg Konrad Wolf