At this year’s European Cinema Awards, held in Iceland’s capital Reykjavík, all Ukrainian producers were rewarded by the Council of Europe’s cultural support fund, Eurimages, as a show of solidarity with the hit young and fast-growing film industry. tough by war.

Julia Sinkevych is a Ukrainian producer and former director of the Odessa Cinema Festival. He received the award on behalf of his peers who risked their lives on many fronts. Most Ukrainian producers decided to stay in their war-torn homeland.

“It is a great honor to represent all Ukrainian producers here and receive this award in [these] turbulent and tragic times that Ukraine is going through,” he said.

Many Ukrainian films, including fiction and documentaries, were nominated for the European Cinema Awards.

But posthumously, Mantas Kvedaravičius’ ‘Mariupolis 2’ received the award for best documentary. The Lithuanian director was killed by the Russians during the siege of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in April.

“The director of this cinema, my father won’t be here today, so [I] would like to say how proud I am of him,” said Tėja Kvedaravičius, daughter of Mantas Kvedaravičius. “He lost his life by distributing drugs, the kind of dedication most of us can’t hope to achieve. I feel so lucky to have such a brilliant person in my life.”

Mariupolis 2 is a crude depiction of life in the Ukrainian port city amid chaos and war. After the producer’s death, it was completed by his fiancee and presented at the Cannes cinema festival in extremis.

Euronews met with two Ukrainian award winners in Reykjavik. Julia Sinkevych explains, “Filmmakers and creative people actually react differently. Some have this creative power to move forward or create new stories and movies, and some are unmotivated and stuck in the middle of something and just have to fight for their physical strength.” survival.”

“Being a producer in Ukraine right now is extremely challenging and extremely complex, so I wouldn’t want any of my European colleagues to find themselves in this position and situation,” Ukrainian producer Darya Bassel told Euronews.

Darya Bassel is the producer of ‘Butterfly Vision’, which tells the heartbreaking story of a Ukrainian soldier who is raped while being held captive in Donbass, and reminds us that the war really started in 2014.

The film, which was completed on the subject of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was screened in the Un Certain Regard category at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.