Why Ukrainian cinema does not give up – An interview with Viktoriya Yarmoshchuk, the executive director of the Ukrainian Film Association, CEO on FILM.UA Group 

Ukraine will cooperate with Hollywood and Netflix despite the invasion of Russia, says Viktoriya Yarmoshchuk.  The executive director of the Ukrainian Film Association, CEO FILM.UA Group emphasizes that the year 2022 was supposed to be the breakthrough of Ukrainian cinema to the highest global market, but the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation prevented it. However, Ukrainian cinema does not give up.

Ed Sheeran, Miley Cyrus, Coldplay, Pink Floyd and Hurts have already filmed their music videos in Ukraine, the Netflix film “The Last Mercenary” also has Ukrainian locations – the list can be continued. Cooperation with Ukraine was beneficial to the world both financially and territorially. 

Plans for 2022

In most countries, there are institutions that deal with the systematization of locations. There was no such base in Ukraine. It was created after 2014. Information about each place was filled in according to international standards – coordinates, who to contact to get permission to shoot, all the contacts that are nearby. 

It was a huge job. And this year it was supposed to work as an open platform’’.

We were ready to enter the world market, but it happened a little differently. Our breakthrough is postponed, but not canceled. Ukraine will still work as planned, with the world – Hollywood, Netflix – although Russia has interfered now. I hope that we will return the territories, nature will be restored, architecture will be rebuilt. Well, we will be filming “scoop” less often (laughs). Independent Ukraine will only benefit from this.”  

What Ukraine can offer the world now

Screenshot from the “Locations of Ukraine” database

Victoria Yarmoshchuk singles out the main areas that can be developed and offered now:

  • Purchase of Ukrainian content
  • Joint production and development 
  • Services

Before the pandemic, Ukrainian films accounted for about 8% of the total box office of Ukraine.

This is extremely high, previously these figures were about 2%. That is, the audience finally believed that our cinema is worth paying attention to,” says the expert. 

And as a result of the invasion of Russia, interest in Ukrainian national content abroad has increased many times – films, series, animations. 

All this is very well bought,” says Yarmoshchuk. “We collected a catalog of Ukrainian films related to the war and began to actively offer it for saleThe money we collected was transferred to the Armed Forces or humanitarian support for displaced persons.” 

During the 4 months of the full-scale invasion, a total of about 9,000 hours of Ukrainian content was sold. 

Read the entire interview in the link below:

https://life.liga.net/poyasnennya/article/ukraina-budet-rabotat-s-gollivudom-i-netflix-nesmotrya-na-vtorjenie-rossii-yarmoschuk

Interview Viktoriya Yarmoschuk