The inaugural edition of Docudays UA was held in 2003. Its program included documentaries and feature films, most of which were Ukrainian premieres. The festival didn’t become an annual affair right away. The second edition took place in 2005. This time the program focused on non-fiction films. The festival became competitive in 2006 and received its current name, the Docudays UA International Human Rights Film Festival, in 2008.
The mission of Docudays UA is to promote documentary filmmaking in Ukraine and to raise public awareness of human rights issues in Ukraine. The festival gives a unique opportunity to watch high-quality documentaries from all over the world. The main festival is held in Kyiv every March. Half a year later, the best films are screened at the Docudays UA Traveling Festival.
The festival consists of competition and non-competition programs. Docudays UA hosts four competitions, each of them is judged by a separate jury. The competition programs are DOCU/LIFE (feature-length documentaries noted for their artistic means of expression), DOCU/RIGHT (feature-length documentaries focusing on human rights issues and the struggle for fundamental rights and freedoms), DOCU/SHORT (short documentaries), and DOCU/UKRAINE (Ukrainian documentaries or documentary films co-produced with Ukraine).
The festival’s non-competition sections include DOCU/BEST (the best films that have been screened at other international documentary film festivals dedicated to human rights), DOCU/ART (documentaries about arts and artists), DOCU/KIDS (children’s documentaries), and retrospectives.
Docudays UA is the largest documentary film festival in Ukraine. It attracts established and up-and-coming Ukrainian filmmakers as well as guests from Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Along with competitive and non-competitive screenings, the program includes meetings with film industry professionals, discussions, workshops, and other events for both filmmakers and the general audience.
Docudays UA is a not-for-profit and non-political event. It is free for anyone to attend because its main goal is to make high-quality documentary films accessible to a wide audience.
In 2020, the event was held online due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the 2022 festival was postponed due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Photo: Natalka Dyachenko
