Three Ukrainian short films make it to 29th Palm Springs ShortFest, a gateway to Oscar longlist

Three Ukrainian short films were selected for the 29th Palm Springs ShortFest program, which will be held from June 20 to 26, 2023. Victory in the competition of this festival allows getting into the longlist of the Oscar film award.

Moviegram reports that Palm Springs ShortFest 2023 will screen the following films:

Perezapys (Rerecording), directed by Kyryl Zemlianyi. According to the plot, the family celebrates the birthday of their son. After a warm welcome, the usual celebration begins. In his work, Zemlianyi talks in a concentrated form about the destruction of the family and how aggression becomes the norm in relationships. The film was included in the long list of contenders for the seventh Golden Dzyga national film award.

It's a Date, directed by Nadia Parfan. This is the first feature film of Parfan, known for the documentaries Sings Ivano-Frankivskteplokomunenergo, Women Playing Games, and I Didn't Want to Make a Film About War. It's a Date tells the story of the capital of a country in which a full-scale war continues, but life in all its manifestations does not stop. The film was shown in the competition program of this year's Berlinale.

I Never Dreamed of My Son, directed by Jason Blevins. The film tells a story about a man who, five years after the start of the war in Ukraine, finds out that his missing son may have been in captivity all this time. The film was shown in the Kyiv International Short Film Festival 2022 Ukrainian competition, and now it can be viewed on The New Yorker.

Last year, three Ukrainian films were also selected for the Palm Springs ShortFest program: Operator Victoria by Anna Sobolevska, Jordan'96 by Kateryna Lesyk, and Diaper Cake by Anastasia Babenko.

Palm Springs International Short Film Festival (Palm Springs ShortFest) is one of the world's largest short film festivals, showcasing films of various genres (feature, documentary, animated) from different countries. It's held annually in Palm Springs, California. The winners of the festival are automatically nominated for Oscars and BAFTA Awards.

Rubryka reported that Ukrainer presented the documentary project "Units of Victory."

Actress Katrin Deneuve read Ukrainian renowned poet Lesya Ukrainka's poem at the opening of the Cannes Film Festival.