Ivanna Khitsinska

A story about relationships between children and adults broken by shaky 1990s in Ukraine. The boy Tymophii befriends a weird man named Felix. He's the veteran of Afghan war, he has PTSD and he loves music.

Shelter is a virtual reality documentary directed by Sjors Swierstra (The Netherlands) and co-directed by Ivanna Khitsinska (Ukraine) that offers an intimate look at the war in Ukraine. The film immerses the viewer in everyday scenes: from a tender conversation between pregnant women in an underground maternity ward in Kyiv to the heart-wrenching funeral of a soldier in Lviv. From the tense preparation of soldiers in a frontline barracks to the breathtaking performance of a symphony orchestra in a basement in Kharkiv. In Shelter, the audience is invited to step into a virtual space with people from Ukraine, to witness moments of shared humanity and reflect on the cost of war.

In 2014, Shakhta, Dancer, and Potter volunteered for the army in order to fight in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict in eastern Ukraine. Although the horrible things they experienced during two years on the front accompany them for every second of their existence, they try to return to civilian life. But the Russian invasion in 2022 forces them to again confront the war.

Monroe, Aura, Marlene: Three drag queens from the Ukrainian LGBTQ+ community raise funds for the frontlines, re-defining resilience and hope between glamorous shows and wartime life.

Oleh "Simon" Krisenko is a guy from Mykolaiv who went to war in 2014. In civilian life, he was an actor and played in a children's theater. In 2014, when the war started, he immediately joined a volunteer battalion. We filmed Simon during his service in the regiment in 2015, 2016, and 2017. Together with other defenders of Mariupol, he ended up at Azovstal and then in captivity. In May 2023, Simon returned home after a year in Russian captivity. He is currently undergoing rehabilitation. He is actively involved in campaigns and support for the families of prisoners and wounded.

High school student Yurko Turiantysia stumbles across a deadly conspiracy involving a war veteran framed for murder by Russian news outlets, joining forces in doing so with his dog, a bumbling master of disguise and his classmates. The only one who can help them solve the mystery is the mysterious individual known only as The Black Hand.