Amman — A question precedes the three films featured in the fifth edition of Ukrainian Film Days in Amman, perhaps explaining why they have been brought together more than their widely differing genres: Who owns the image? Who owns an artist who lived within an empire and whose name became part of its history? Who owns an ancient myth that travelled from folklore to literature and then to the entertainment industry? And who owns a distant place such as Antarctica, when a research station there becomes part of a country's presence as it simultaneously struggles to defend its existence at home?
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For this reason, Malewicz by Daria Onishchenko, Mavka: The True Myth by Katya Tsarik, and Antarctica by Anton Ptushkin do not appear to be merely three examples of contemporary Ukrainian cinema. To varying degrees of success, they are films concerned with reclaiming things that have been lost or nearly lost: a name in the first, a myth in the second, and an image of the country in the third. This reclamation does not take place through direct political discourse so much as through the images themselves: a painting, a forest and a mass of ice.
This is not unusual for a cinema whose most fertile periods emerged from the conflict between images and power. The Ukrainian Cinema and Photography Administration, which operated between 1922 and 1930, produced more than 140 feature films and hundreds of non-fiction films. It provided a creative space for filmmakers such as Alexander Dovzhenko, Dziga Vertov and Mykhailo Kaufman before its independence was dismantled during the Stalinist era. Around 60 of its feature films remain lost to this day.
The screenings begin the day after tomorrow and continue through Thursday at Rainbow Theatre. The event is organized by the Royal Film Commission – Jordan in cooperation with the Ukrainian Embassy in Jordan, the Ukrainian State Film Agency, the Kyiv Cultural Cluster and the European Film Foundation.
Cinema that carries its memory within its form
From Dovzhenko, who turned the land, wheat and rural faces into visual poetry in Earth, to Sergei Parajanov, who transformed folklore and popular rituals in Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors into an explosion of colour and movement, Ukrainian cinema developed traditions that do not treat place merely as a backdrop for events. Nature, folk memory, language and rituals are elements that contribute to the construction of meaning itself. The latter film was one of the turning points that gave rise to what later became known as “Ukrainian poetic cinema”, through its untamed imagery rooted in Hutsul culture, rhythms, music and mythology.
This history is important when watching the films in the current programme, because all three, in their own ways, return to the same idea: identity is not only narrated; it is also captured in images. The difference, however, is that contemporary Ukrainian cinema is operating at a time when questions of identity have become more urgent. Following Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, correcting an artist's historical attribution, reclaiming a folk tale or showing a Ukrainian world at work in Antarctica are no longer entirely innocent cultural details. They have become part of a broader struggle over who writes the country's history and how others see it. This is precisely what makes the three films worthy of discussion, but it also presents them with another risk: that the desire to reclaim identity may turn into an explanation of identity.
“Malewicz”: When the position precedes the character
In Malewicz, the challenge begins with the strength of the idea itself. Kazimir Malevich is an ideal subject for cinema: an artist who made a single black square one of the most famous images in modern art, lived through the major political transformations of the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union, and clashed with the authorities who eventually restricted avant-garde art. But Daria Onishchenko is not simply seeking to make a biographical film about an artist; she also wants to reclaim him within the Ukrainian context.
The director stated explicitly in comments to the website ProShoKino that the war had changed her understanding of the film and that the themes of dismantling the imperial legacy and freedom had become more central after 2022. This prompted her to add a contemporary storyline linking Malevich's era to the present. She also chose to divide the film into four sections, referencing the geometric shapes associated with his artistic work.
This intention explains both the film's strength and its dilemma. Visually, Malewicz has rich material to draw on: geometric composition, costume design, studio spaces and colours that can become an extension of the artist's thinking. However, when proving “who Malevich belongs to” becomes more urgent than exploring the person he was, the character is confined within a pre-established thesis.
Here, a contradiction emerges that is both compelling and unsettling. Malevich, who rebelled against realistic representation and the idea that a painting should reproduce the world, finds himself in a film that sometimes leans towards explaining him rather than daring to capture his ambiguity. Perhaps what the film needed most was something of Malevich himself: an empty space, less explanation and confidence that an image can say what a sentence cannot.
This tendency is not entirely separate from Onishchenko's career. In The Forgotten (2019), she placed her characters in Luhansk, which was under separatist control, making language, propaganda and the sense of alienation within the place itself part of the individuals' tragedy. From its outset, the film drew attention to the struggle over language, memory and belonging. Earlier, in Eastalgia, she had already shown an interest in blending personal stories with questions of migration and displacement, although its dramatic writing attracted more debate than its visual achievements.
For this reason, Malewicz appears to be a logical continuation of her work: an individual upon whose body history exerts its pressure. This time, however, the film seeks to make the character carry a history larger than he can always bear.
“Mavka”: When myth enters the image market
If Malewicz reclaims a name from history, Mavka: The True Myth seeks to reclaim a creature from collective memory. This reclamation is more complicated because Mavka was never truly absent. The animated film Mavka: The Forest Song achieved widespread success and evolved into a commercial and cultural project that extended to screenings, products and various collaborations.
The new film approaches the character from the opposite direction: Mavka is not a gentle forest guardian, but a dangerous creature who lures humans into the water. The production company says the project sought to return to the character's older folkloric roots and give her a dual and darker nature.
This is where the film's best idea lies: returning the monster to the myth. The forest is not a romantic backdrop, and the water is not a space of tranquillity, but a boundary between life and death. Cinematographer Yuriy Korol makes effective use of fog, moisture, cool colours and the contrast between human bodies and aquatic creatures, giving the film its primary visual appeal. Meanwhile, Katya Tsarik's background in directing music videos, concerts and visual performances is evident in her preference for polished imagery, the composition of bodies within the frame, and careful attention to costumes and lighting.
Yet beauty sometimes becomes a constraint. There is a difference between a myth being dark and merely looking dark. The film masters the latter more than the former. When the forest becomes a series of attractive images, it loses some of its ability to frighten. And when the love story between Mavka and Lukian pushes the narrative towards a familiar path, the strangeness of the mythical creature gives way to a romantic heroine whose transformation can be anticipated.
The paradox is that the film seeks to liberate Mavka from her softened image, only to tame her again through love. Therefore, the most intriguing question is not whether Mavka can become human, but the opposite: why does cinema need to make the strange creature familiar to us before we can love her?
“Antarctica”: A homeland appears when it moves away from the camera
The documentary Antarctica initially seems to stand apart from all this. There is no avant-garde art, no myth and no rewriting of history. Director Anton Ptushkin boards the icebreaker Noosphere and reaches the Akademik Vernadsky research station, where he films Ukrainian scientists, nature and daily life on the Antarctic continent.
The film is his second feature-length work after We, Our Pets and the War. He filmed the material in March last year during a voyage with the 30th Ukrainian Antarctic Expedition.
Its strength lies in its refusal to turn every shot into a metaphor. An iceberg remains an iceberg, a penguin remains a penguin, and a scientist repairing equipment at the station does not need heroic music to make their presence meaningful.
Yet this is precisely where the film's political meaning emerges. The Ukraine shown here is not the country we see every day in war bulletins, but a nation with scientists, a research vessel and a station at the other end of the Earth. Its presence on the Antarctic continent is not merely symbolic. The film explores climate research, scientific life and the expedition's work, while everyday details, from food to isolation and cramped living spaces, make science a human experience rather than a school report.
At the same time, Antarctica carries Ptushkin's visual language, shaped by travel films and online content. The director has explained that the project did not initially begin as a film intended for theatrical release. This helps explain its narration style, pacing and approach to presenting information, while prompting some viewers to question whether it is documentary cinema in the strict sense or an extended version of a travel film.
But this may also be the secret behind its appeal. Ptushkin does not ask viewers to “learn” about the continent; he makes them want to spend 80 minutes there. At a time when many Ukrainian documentary filmmakers are pursuing the war in search of its meaning, he travels to the farthest possible place from it, only to find Ukraine there too.
Three films, one incomplete image
What brings Malewicz, Mavka and Antarctica together is not the war, but an attempt to move beyond the image it has imposed on Ukraine. The first revisits artistic history, the second reinvents folklore, and the third reveals a side of the country far removed from the front lines.
However, the films differ in their approaches. Malewicz overexplains its ideas, Mavka allows its visuals to surpass its dramatic development, while Antarctica finds its strength in everyday details, allowing a sense of wonder to say more than direct discourse can.
Perhaps this is the most compelling perspective offered by these film days. The question is not what these films tell us about Ukraine, but how many different Ukraines can exist within cinema. The Ukraine of Malevich is not the same as that of Mavka, and neither is the Ukraine of scientists surrounded by ice. Together, the three films create an image of a country that wants not only to defend its land, but also its right to be more than the image the war has created of it.
