Ventilator and Ґanok launch a new series dedicated to independent Ukrainian cinema. The opening event brings together two mockumentaries that use staged documentary form to explore memory, history, and the blurred line between fact and fiction.

Drawing on amateur-style footage, archival material, and constructed narratives, the films examine how personal and collective pasts are shaped, replayed, and mediated — from intimate family rituals of the 1990s to the myths and traumas of the Soviet era. Shifting perspectives and temporal overlaps invite the audience to question not only what is remembered, but how these stories are told.

Alongside the screenings, we will host an on-site fundraiser for Ukrainian volunteer initiatives from the International Aid Legion providing medical aid and evacuation efforts in frontline areas.

Screenings:

Hedgehog Cakes: Sweet Weapon of Terror ‘20 (2025) — an absurdist, unsettling dive into the collective totalitarian world of Stalin's hysteria and cultural myth-making directed by Zhenia Stepanenko.

Nail ‘32 (2016) — a fictional documentary by Fіlіp Sotnichenko about the Kyiv family’s emigration to Switzerland in the first fragile years of Ukrainian independence.

Schedule:

Doors Open 16:00
Film opening presentation 16:30 - 16:40
Screenings 16.40 - 17.30
Q&A 17:30
Drinks at bar 18:00
Presentor: Vitalii Nemchenko

Main fundraiser link: https://send.monobank.ua/jar/6AKRASM6j

Mockumentary Shots with Ґаnok: Ukrainian Movie Room