Ukrainian Association in Finland hosts Ukrainian Film Days festival

The Ukrainian Association in Finland (UAF) held the 8th Ukrainian Film Days festival in Helsinki on Nov. 7-10. This year, the festival focused on the role of women in war.

“The idea was to analyze what women’s roles during a war are, how they change and whether our experience differs from others,” said Nataliya Teramae, UAF’s coordinator of cultural projects. “We believe that exchanging experiences and discussing critical societal issues can help us in terms of rebuilding our society and the reconstruction of Ukraine after the russian-Ukrainian war.”

The festival opened with the Finnish documentary ‘Lotat / Women in War’ (directed by Taru Mäkelä, 1995) about veteran members of the female voluntary paramilitary organization Lotta Svärd, whose history was heavily censored during the Cold War. 

“It was forbidden to talk publicly about lotat after World War II. If they were pictured then only negatively. This film is a sign of honor to the Finnish military”, said the film’s director after the screening.  

The Ukrainian documentary ‘Invisible Battalion’ filmed in 2017 sought to draw public attention to gender discrimination in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, and to increase the visibility of the Russo-Ukrainian war. 

“Thanks to our campaign, 63 positions were opened for women in 2016 and some amendments to the law were implemented in 2018”, explained Mariia Berlinska, the founder of the Invisible Battalion project and the director of the Aerial Reconnaissance Support Center.

The festival’s program featured a total of four films. It was first held in 2017 and is organized by AUF in collaboration with the National Audiovisual Institute of Finland and the Kyiv-based National Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Centre.