From December 2025 to April 2026, France will host a series of cultural events as part of Ukrainian Season. The organisers announced this at a press conference dedicated to the event.
According to the organisers, the Ukrainian season will be the largest cultural project since the establishment of diplomatic relations between France and Ukraine. It will be held under the title ‘Voyage to Ukraine’ and the slogan ‘Culture fights back’.
The events will take place in a number of French cities, including Paris, Marseille, Lille, Toulouse, Nantes, Rennes, Strasbourg and Lyon. The Season will pay particular attention to cooperation between twin cities. More than 30 literary, theatrical, artistic, musical and film events, professional exchanges, academic events, as well as discussions on topics such as civil society, human rights, war crimes, preservation of memory and cultural heritage, health and mental health, media and disinformation are planned.
In particular, the Théâtre de la Concorde in Paris will host a four-day forum on human rights and Russia's war crimes, with the participation of Maksym Butkevych, Oleksandra Matviychuk and Stanislav Aseyev. The Palace of Fine Arts in Lille will showcase Illia Repin’s painting Cossacks Write a Letter to the Turkish Sultan from the Kharkiv Art Museum and host a discussion on Russia’s appropriation of Ukrainian culture and the historical context of the artwork’s creation. The Lille Opera will present a concert featuring Kharkiv pianists performing alongside the Lille Orchestra. Meanwhile, the Cinémathèque Française will screen a retrospective of 13 films by Oleksandr Dovzhenko and hold a discussion on the filmmaker’s evolution from a figure of the Ukrainian bohemia to a voice of Soviet propaganda. The Lille Opera House will host a concert performed by Kharkiv pianists accompanied by the Lille orchestra. The French Cinematheque will show a retrospective of 13 films by Alexander Dovzhenko and discuss the director and his transformation from a representative of Ukrainian bohemianism to a mouthpiece for Soviet propaganda.
The Season of Ukraine in France is organised by the French Institute and the Ukrainian Institute under the patronage of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and with the support of the Ministries of Culture of both countries.
“Seasons are not a new format,” said Volodymyr Sheyko, director of the Ukrainian Institute. “Ukraine has already held cultural seasons in Austria in 2019 and in the United Kingdom in 2022–2023. This third attempt has extremely important messages that we want to convey to French society through cultural projects, dialogue programmes, information campaigns, residencies and exchanges. It is important for us to show that for Ukraine, culture is not entertainment or a luxury, it is the very core of our resistance. And we want to do this through the voices of people of culture in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, volunteers, and human rights defenders."
The President of the French Institute, Eva Nguyen Binh, emphasised that the French public is keen to learn more about Ukrainian culture and life in Ukraine: "We cannot encourage travel to Ukraine at the moment, so we have adopted this format of an imaginary journey to show Ukraine through creativity and the resilience of Ukrainians, which inspires genuine admiration around the world."
The full programme for the Ukraine season in France will be published on the websites of the Ukrainian and French Institutes in due course.