Films for Ukraine: Through the Female Lens

About

The Bartlett School of Architecture, in association with King's College London Films for Ukraine and the Lithuanian Cultural Institute, with support from the Lithuanian Embassy in London and King's Arts and Humanities Faculty, is hosting a roundtable on women, cinema and the city in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

Through the Female Lens is the subtitle for this year's Films for Ukraine screening series. This closing roundtable offers an open space for reflection on gender in Ukraine and Eastern Europe during wartime. The event will begin with each speaker introducing their work as women filmmakers and urban researchers in Ukraine and Eastern Europe before opening up for general discussion.

Speakers

Dounia Sichov is an actor, producer and editor. She has appeared in films directed by Catherine Breillat, Mikhaël Hers, Denis Côté and Abel Ferrara, and produced films by the latter two. She edited Mariupolis as well as Mariupolis 2. She is currently directing a documentary on transgender identity. 

Ievgeniia Gubkina is an architectural historian and filmmaker, currently based at The Bartlett School of Architecture as a visiting researcher. Her work specialises in architecture and urban planning of the 20th century in Ukraine, and a multidisciplinary approach to heritage studies. She is the author of the books Slavutych: Architectural Guide (2015) and Soviet Modernism. Brutalism. Post-Modernism. Buildings and Structures in Ukraine 1955–1991 (2019). In 2020–2021 she curated the Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Architecture, a multimedia online project that worked with architecture, history, criticism, cinema, and visual arts.

Giedrė Žickytė produced Irina Tsilyk’s The Earth Is as Blue as an Orange, which won the Directing Award at Sundance in 2020. The documentary follows a woman and her children trying to survive in the Eastern Ukraine warzone, and her daughter’s determination to become a cinematographer. Trained at the European Film Academy, Giedrė established her company Moonmakers in 2014. Her own documentary, The Jump, traces the defection of a Lithuanian radio operator from a Soviet ship in 1970, and has won multiple awards.

Dr Lina Kaminskaitė-Jančorienė is the Head of the Art History and Theory Department at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (LMTA). She has been conducting research on the professional experiences of women in the Lithuanian film industry in the post-Soviet era.

Hanna Bilobrova is the co-director of Mariupolis 2, the last work by Mantas Kvedaravičius, who was killed during the siege of Mariupol, Ukraine, last March. The film documents the everyday horror of war. Hanna Bilobrova rescued the footage, and finished Mariupolis 2 together with editor Dounia Sichov.

More information

One of King's Films for Ukraine’s key aims is to collect funds for charities. Donations for this event will be divided equally between ArmWomenNow and Blue/Yellow.

ArmWomenNow is a social initiative providing women defenders of Ukraine with army uniforms by means of donations and funds gathered by charity auctions and lotteries. For further information, visit their website. 

Blue/Yellow is an NGO that has been supporting Ukraine’s armed resistance since 2014. They provide Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers with non-lethal supplies to help them battle Russian aggression. For further information, visit their website. 

Suggested minimum donation: £5.00

Image: Still from Mariupolis 2, Mantas Kvedaravičius, Hanna Bilobrova, 2022