UFF: Short Films, Block 1

BLOCK 1:

FISH IN MY BELLY, CURFEW

FERRY FLOATING/ROTATION/LITTLE CAPTAIN/

PHANTOM

FISH IN LIFE

dir. Yehor Holovkov/2026/Ukraine/6'

Description

A man wakes up with fish in his stomach that bite him severely. In search of salvation, he follows suspicious people to an underground bar where fish fights are organized, where he is unexpectedly drawn into a series of strange events.

awards

2026 — Official selection for the 17th Wiz-Art International Short Film Festival, Lviv

2026 — Official Selection for the International Animation Festival, Ottawa

2026 — Official Selection for 10th Chaniartoon International Comics and Animation Festival, Chania

2026 — Official Selection for Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin

2026 — Official Selection for the 34th International Animated Short Film Festival “Les Nuits Magiques”, Bordeaux

Metric

Genre: animation

Directed by: Yehor Holovkov

Written by: Yehor Holovkov, Ira Yeroshko

Cinematography, editing: Yehor Holovkov

Producer: Ira Yeroshko

Language, subtitles: dialogue-free

Country/year/time: Ukraine/2026/6'

YEHOR HOLOVKOV

Ukrainian animator, director, editor and screenwriter living in Kiev. He has eight years of experience in stop-motion animation, traditional frame-by-frame animation and motion design using rig-based animation. He is also a member of the experimental musical group “Gurt”.

CURFEW/CURFEW YEAR

dir. Yelyzaveta Toptyhina/2025/Ukraine/23'

In the course of the expedition, the young photographer misestimates the time and does not manage to hitchhike to the city. At the bus stop, she meets a boyfriend who is celebrating his birthday. With the curfew approaching, strangers are forced to spend the night together in a roadside hotel.

2025 — 16th Wiz-Art Film Festival, Lviv: Audience Award

2025 — Nominated for the European Audience Award for Short Film (ESFAA)

2025 — Official Selection at Early Bird International Student Film Festival, Sofia

2026 — Węgiel Film Festival, Katowice: Audience Award

2026 — Official Selection at Early Bird International Student Film Festival, Sofia

2026 — Nominations for the Ukrainian National Film Critics Award “Kinokolo”: Best Short Feature Film and Best Screenplay

2026 — Selection for the anthology “Ukrainian New Wave” curated by Dovzhenko Centre

2026 — Official Selection at Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival

Genre: drama

Directed by Yelyzaveta Toptyhina

Cinematographer: Bohdan Haidash

Editing: Yuliia Kolinko

Cast: Olexandra Barstok, Pavlo Lohvin, Iryna Kravchenko, Vladyslav Romanshchak, Dmytro Yakymov, Roman Sukhetskyi

Producer: Anastasiia Zakhilko

Language: Ukrainian

Subtitles: English

Country/year/time: Ukraine/2026/23'

ELYSAVETA TOPTYHINA

Ukrainian film director, screenwriter and visual artist. She is a graduate of the Department of Directing of the Ivan Karpenki-Kary National University of Theater, Cinema and Television of Kiev. She is a participant in the Sarajevo Talents 2026 program. Her work deals with themes of memory, intimacy and collective transformation in the context of war.

PROM FLOATS/FERRY PLIVE

dir. Zhora Papoian/2026/Ukraine/18'

The protagonist of the film is Nazarij Matijczuk, a music teacher from the picturesque Zaleszczyk in Ternopolskie. In music school, he prepares the song “Paint Me the Night” with a children's wind band, but the brutal reality of the war forces him to play in parallel with the funeral orchestra, saying goodbye to the fallen on the front of the inhabitants.

Genre: Documentary

Directed by: Zhora Papoian

Cinematography: Yaroslav Pushkarchuk, Kostiantyn Demborynskyi, Anna Yutchenko, Yarema Holota

Editing: Zhora Papoian

Producers: Zhora Papoian, Leon Konstantinov

Language: Ukrainian

Subtitles: polskie

Country/year/time: Ukraine/2026/18'

FROM ABOVE PAPOIAN

Ukrainian film and television director, screenwriter, producer and editor from Mariupol. A graduate of the Kiev National University of Theater, Cinema and Television named after Ivan Karpenki-Kary. Winner of the ELIA UAx Abakanowicz Fellowship (2023—2024), he also studied as part of exchange programs in the USA and Germany. Creator of moving short films and documentaries appreciated at Ukrainian and international festivals (including Wiz-Art).

ROTATION/ROTATION

dir. Maryna Er Gorbach/2026/Ukraine, Turkey, Sweden/12'

The film depicts a therapeutic hypnosis ritual experienced by a young Ukrainian woman, whose hitherto civilian life has suddenly been replaced by military service. The heroine needs support to find herself and adapt to the alien, drastically changed reality in which she came to live.

2026 — Official Selection at the International Film Festival Rotterdam

2026 — Official Selection at the BFI London Film Festival

2026 — Official Selection at Tokyo International Film Festival

Directed by: Maryna Er Gorbach

Cinematographer: Svyatoslav Bulakovskyi

Cast: Nadiya Karpova, Oleksandr Piskunov

Producers: Mehmet Bahadir Er, Maryna Er Gorbach

Country/year/time: Ukraine, Turkey, Sweden/2026/12'

MARYNA IS A HORBACZ

Director, screenwriter and film producer. She graduated from the Kiev National University of Theater, Cinema and Television named after I. Karpenki-Kary. She was then educated at Andrzej Wajda's Master School of Film Directing. Since 2017 she has been a member of the European Film Academy. In 2022, her fourth feature film, Klondike (2022), won the award for “Best Director in the World Cinema Category” at the Sundance Film Festival, one of the most important independent film festivals in the US.

LITTLE CAPTAIN/LITTLE CAPTAIN

dir. Illia Freiman/2025/Romania, Ukraine/25'

Six-year-old Rodica escapes from loneliness in her family home into the world of an old cartoon in which forest animals begin to speak to her. When her birthday party is canceled, the heroes of the fairy tale invite the girl on a joint journey.

Rodica builds a small ship in her pelvis, using a sheet as a sail and her mother's hair dryer as a wind, after which she lets it out on the water. The next morning a kitten appears in the house: Rodi.

2025 — EUROSHORTS, Gdańsk: Best Film Award

Written and directed by Illia Freiman

Photos: Codruta Coroceu

Editing: Illia Freiman

Cast: Anastasia Tace, Carmen Florescu, Raresh Dimofte

Producer: Alexandru Popescu

Languages: Romanian

Country/year/time: Romania, Ukraine/2025/25'

ILIA FREIMAN

Ukrainian director, whose achievements include advertising, television and documentary productions. Over the years of work, he has developed an expressive visual language based on insightful observation, human stories, and emotional authenticity. The Little Captain is his feature film debut, combining intimate social drama with a child's imaginative world.

GHOST/PHANTOM

dir. Yuliia Orlenko/2026/Ukraine/18'

Cut off from their squad in a half-ruined village, two soldiers — Phantom and Cat — hold out under constant enemy fire. In short, tense pauses between successive explosions, Phantom reaches for a notebook and draws the same figure of the girl. As the struggle reaches a turning point, the line between reality and the returning memory blurs, and the figure from the notebook ceases to be just a sketch.

2026 — Official selection for the Mykolaichuk OPEN International Film Festival, Chernivtsi

2026 — Official selection at GogolFest 2026, Kiev

Directed by: Yuliia Orlenko

Written by: Yuliia Orlenko, Tomasz Kontny

Cinematographer: Kostiantyn Ponomarov

Editing: Roman Synchuk

Cast: Hennadii Popenko, Demian Shying, Anastasiya Karpenko

Producers: Roman Deriga, Dmytro Kozhema

YULIYA ORLENKO

Director and screenwriter. A graduate of Taras Shevchenko University in Kiev and the Wajda School in Warsaw. Scholarship of the Gaude Polonia program. She is the creator of award-winning short films (Wooden Wedding, Goldfish) and the latest feature film Phantom (Phantom, 2026) and the documentary Omega (2025).