S Viswanath

In an expression of solidarity, and making common cause with the conflict ridden Ukraine, the Cannes Film Festival 2025, kick started its 78th edition with a special segment entitled ‘Ukraine Day’ showcasing three films that document the ongoing bitter conflict in Ukraine, which has been affecting the Ukrainian people and the world for the past three years now.

These films, according to Cannes Film Festival programmers, provide for diverse perspectives on the conflict, while highlighting the devastating impact of the war. The festival, through this specially curated screening sessions, has sought to acknowledge the commitment of artists and journalists in telling the Ukraine story and bringing it before the large, ubiquitous family of cinephiles assembled for the annual cinema jamboree.

The three films exploring different aspects of the war in Ukraine being screened at the Salle Bazin of the Palais des Festivals, not only were intended to provide a platform for artists, authors, and journalists to document the ongoing conflict, but also showcase different perspectives on the war, including those of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, still holding his own, against the world’s two super powers.

The Cannes Festival’s three films showing the devastation of Russia’s war on Ukraine, featuring two documentaries spotlighting on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with the third film shot on the brutal frontlines of Europe’s biggest war in 80 years.

The Cannes Film Festival’s three film salute to Ukraine features a 135 min French film Zelensky by Yves Jeuland, Lisa Vapné and Ariane Chemin screened at 10 am on Inaugural/Opening Day. The documentary details the life of Volodymyr Zelensky born in 1978 in Kryvyï Rih, a major steel and mining centre in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east-central region.

Featuring rare access to President Zelenksy and the people who have known him since his childhood – as well as photos, film archives and never-before-seen eyewitness accounts – this film paints a picture of both the president and his country.

The film centres around the men and women who have known and worked with him from his earliest childhood right up to the present day. Also featured in this film: the team who surrounded him in the exercise of power and those who have stayed by his side since the beginning of the war. It shows how raised as an atheist, the Ukrainian president, when he was 13, witness the collapse of the USSR. His largely politicised adolescence followed the hopes and chaos of an independent Ukraine, where crime and poverty flourished, while the future oligarchs appropriated a share of the country’s resources.

In building courtyards, on improvised stages, his little troupe of friends, boys and girls, try their hand at stand-up comedy and song. The undisputed leader, Volodymyr Zelensky studies law to reassure his father, but puts most of his hyperactivity into writing and putting on shows. In sum, the documentary is the story of a Soviet kid who dreamed of glitter and applause, an actor who played the role of a President in a TV series so well that he developed a taste for it and became one and story of a man who didn’t do his military service, yet was propelled into the role of war leader.

The second film, which followed at 1.30 pm., is the 78 min Notre Guerre, by Bernard-Henri Lévy and Marc Roussel, a France-Ukraine production. The film speaks of how between February and April 2025, Bernard-Henri Lévy and his co-director Marc Roussel filmed the Pokrovsk and Soumy fronts in Eastern Ukraine. They followed the fighters of the Anne de Kyiv Brigade, armed by France. They filmed the daily lives of the inhabitants, bombarded by Russian forces terrorizing civilians on the eve of possible negotiations.

They interview President Zelensky, who is reluctant to travel to Washington, and then watch the rebroadcast of the meeting with Ukrainian soldiers in a bunker. For the real heroes of the film are the anonymous fighters and civilians who hold their heads high in the face of adversity and suffering, and who are filmed on a daily basis.

The French philosopher’s fourth film is a dispatch from the frontlines in Pokrovsk and Sumy and chronicles the ongoing conflict with Russia three years after the invasion.

The film, the final part of Lévy’s ‘Ukrainian Quartet’, is a diary, peppered with flashbacks in which the author recalls the high points of this war that began in 2014.

The third, and final film, screened at 3.30 pm, in the triad Ukraine Day segment, being 2000 Meters to Andriivka by Mstyslav Chernov, a 111 mins Ukraine-USA co-production.

The film, from the Academy Award–winning director of 20 Days in Mariupol provides audiences an immersive and harrowing look at the mission of one Ukrainian platoon and reveals the story of the liberation of the village of Andriivka near Bakhmut by the soldiers of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. .

Mstyslav Chernov’s commitment to documenting the devastation of his homeland and the gruelling efforts of Ukrainian forces to win back their territories is of the highest order. Despite the extremely high risk, Chernov joins soldiers on the front line in eastern Ukraine as they inch forward through a narrow strip of charred forest flanked by minefields in an effort to liberate the strategic village of Andriivka.

The screenings were facilitated by the Festival de Cannes and the Mayor’s Office of Cannes with France Télévisions and Brut, official partners of the event, who organised the exceptional screenings of three films dedicated to the War in Ukraine.

The programme, according to Cannes Film Festival, is a reminder of the commitment of the Festival de Cannes and its ability to tell the story of the world’s challenges, which are those of our future, through works of cinema.

By joining forces, France Télévisions, Brut. and the Festival de Cannes, are affirming their desire to give voice to those who bear witness to contemporary realities and stand up for the truth.

Observing that nothing similar has been planned for the war in Gaza, the Cannes Film Festival, has pointed out that the film on Hassouna was to ‘honour’ her memory.

The 2025 documentary ‘Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk’ centres around Fatima Hassouna, a Palestinian journalist and artist, who was killed in a 2025 Israeli air strike in Gaza. The film, directed by Sepideh Farsi, has been selected for the ACID section of the Cannes Film Festival. Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk features video conversations between Hassouna and the director. Hassouna was killed alongside ten family members in an Israeli airstrike on their Gaza City home on 16 April 2025.

Meanwhile, Gazan filmmakers Arab and Tarzan Nasser will be showcasing their fiction feature Once Upon A Time In Gaza set in 2007 in the Palestinian territory.

The film, which premieres in the Un Certain Regard segment of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, is a revenge thriller set in Gaza and is among nine Arab films being screened at the film festival.

The film, directed by the Gaza born twins, narrates the story of Yahya, a student who strikes up a friendship with Ousama, “a charismatic dealer” and begins selling drugs out of a falafel store, but soon become locked in the crosshairs of a corrupt policeman. After Ousama is murdered, Yahya sets out for revenge. “His encounter with the killer alters everything.” While a new perspective of life is offered to him, the meeting with his friend’s killer questions everything. Will he be able to revenge him without compromising himself?

S VISWANATH is a veteran film critic who officiates as JURY at several National & International Film Festivals. He deputises as CHIEF CINEMA CURATOR/PROGRAMMER & CREATIVE ADVISOR for Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFes). He also curates & advises on the selection of shorts & documentaries for Bengaluru International Short Film Festival (BISFF). Mr Viswanath is the author of “RANDOM REFLECTIONS: A Kaleidoscopic Musings on Kannada Cinema”.