The short film Easter Day by director Mykola Zasieiev has been awarded Best European Film in the short film category at the 66th Kraków International Film Festival.
“It takes truly exceptional sensitivity and subtlety to address such a bleak subject while drawing humour and humanity from the tragic experience of wartime,” the jury said.
The film Easter Day tells a story set on Easter Sunday in Kyiv. Two men from a territorial recruitment centre slowly drive through the city streets, observing men who could be called up for military service. Their path crosses with a young man who has left home to buy food for his cat. The film has been included in the shortlist for the 2026 Golden Dzyga national film awards.
Director and screenwriter Mykola Zasieiev, whose debut short film Phase was nominated for a Golden Dzyga award in 2022, is currently working on an anthology of short films inspired by Easter Day.
The “Silver Horn” award for a film of “high artistic value” was presented to Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk for Silent Flood.
“We were deeply moved by how the film, with unwavering artistic discipline and faith in humanity, conveys the beauty of simple gestures even in the darkest hours of war. Baking bread becomes a metaphor for the act of filmmaking itself: an exercise in patience, perseverance and solidarity unfolding over time, nurturing hope for a better world,” the jury said in its statement.
The film portrays a pacifist religious community living along the Dniester River on land that once lay along the front line of two world wars. Their peaceful life, filled with children’s laughter, is repeatedly disrupted by floods and war. The film has already received the award for Best Cinematography at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).
Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk is a director whose debut feature film Pamfir was included in The Guardian’s list of the best films of 2023. He has signed a contract with US film agent Juell Ross, who works with Barry Jenkins, the director of Moonlight (which won three Academy Awards) and who is currently working on a prequel to The Lion King for Disney.