Add to Queue: Polya Moshenska’s Films about Ukraine
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words – polya moshenska
location – edinburgh, uk
Щемко! That is a feeling, I can not find the right English word for this.
It holds so much: a quiet ache, tenderness, sorrow, love and many other subtle tones. A feeling of something fragile, beautiful and painfully real, all at once.
My name is Polina Moshenska. I am a Ukrainian director and film editor based in Edinburgh. I graduated from the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy with an MA in Culture Studies and an MA in Film Directing from Edinburgh College of Art, The University of Edinburgh. My short documentaries have been screened at various international festivals worldwide.
Today, I invite you to join me on a brief journey through recent Ukrainian creative documentaries, made by my brilliant and courageous friends and colleagues. These films are made mostly by Ukrainian women. And in every frame, you can feel their resistance – not just against Russia’s illegal invasion of my country, but against silence, emotional numbness and forgetting.
01_Intercepted, Oksana Karpovych, 2024
I had the privilege of watching this film at the Thessaloniki Film Festival: its second screening after a powerful world premiere at Berlinale. I felt both happy and deeply moved to sit beside Oksana, the film’s director, and to hold her during some of the most difficult moments of the screening.
This film reveals the enormity of what we often call “evil” – showing how deeply rooted it can be in human nature. It captures, with devastating clarity, the full-scale catastrophe unfolding in Ukraine. And it warns us: this horror is not confined. It can, and may, spread in all directions.
The film is incredibly powerful. I wish everyone could see it, and share it. I admire and deeply respect Oksana’s bravery, her honesty and her strength to endure everything it took to bring this story to life.
02_Nice Ladies, Mariia Ponomarova, 2024
What began as a beautiful, empowering story about women challenging stereotypes gradually unfolded into the terrifying reality of full-scale war. I knew the filming had started long before 2022, and there was a moment in the film when I intuitively sensed that this – the full scale invasion – was about to happen.
I think many Ukrainians experience the course of history from February 24th, 2022 in a deeply personal and intense way. It’s something hard to put into words: a continuous, emotional process that defies simple explanation.
The cinematography in the film is gentle and unobtrusive, offering quiet support and creating an intimate sense of closeness – like being held in a hug. At times, the director herself appears on screen, which adds a unique tenderness and vulnerability, especially in how it portrays the relationships among the characters.
One of the most powerful aspects of the film is how it captures the dynamic within a “Team/Family” torn apart by a heartbreaking choice: to stay in Ukraine – in Kharkiv, one of the most heavily bombed cities – or to leave and seek safety abroad. The emotional weight of this division, and the love that remains despite it, is portrayed with care.
03_Dad’s Lullaby, Lesia Diak, 2024
This is a deeply personal film, rooted in the director’s own experience of loss, inner struggle and transformation. It gently but powerfully explores how grief and trauma shape us, how they can bring about subtle, unexpected changes in character, and how embracing vulnerability becomes an act of strength.
The film captures the invisible walls that can form between people; the growing detachment in relationships, even among those who love and care for one another. It doesn’t offer easy answers or dramatic resolutions. Instead, it invites us into a space of emotional openness.
As Lesia said, her team made a film that gives the viewer the freedom of emotional interpretation. And that trust makes the experience of watching it all the more profound.
04_Militantropos, Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova, Simon Mozghovyi, 2025
This film had its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m very much looking forward to it!
Militantropos is the persona a person adopts in times of catastrophe, when ordinary life is abruptly shattered, yet charged with intense existential meaning. The filmmakers capture that exact moment of transition: when an ordinary civilian picks up a weapon for the first time and joins the military, or when people try to rebuild their lives amidst destruction after occupation.
One of the key skills of the Militantropos is the ability to find beauty in nature; simply to feel that they are still alive. Even as nature is destroyed alongside everything else, it still holds its own.
05_Re-creations, Polina Moshenska, 2024
This is the personal and intimate story of the friendship of three women and the struggle to live their everyday life while studying abroad in Scotland as a full-scale war takes place in their home country in Ukraine, where their families and close friends are. The film details the effort and obstacles they face, the everyday relationships in their new country and their pulsing connection to home – stronger, more dedicated and painful like never before. The film focuses on the search for beauty and necessary words whilst also exploring inner conflicts and the disintegration of memories.
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