Registration REQUIRED by 4pm on October 21, 2025 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Ukrainian Film Club at the Harriman Institute for a screening of the feature documentary “Divia,” by Director Dmytro Hreshko, Ukraine (2025).
With the beginning of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and the full-scale invasion in 2022, the state of ecology in Ukraine has deteriorated catastrophically. There are thousands of kilometers of burned and mutilated lands and forests, poisoned rivers, mined fields and animals that are on the verge of extinction. The title of the film, “Divia,” comes from the Slavic goddess of nature, who represents the mother of all living things. Its main characters are the nature of Ukraine and the war which brings destruction and death. Beautifully filmed, this non-verbal feature documentary brings into sharp focus the ecological catastrophe in Ukraine that is already spilling over to other countries.
Polina Herman, the producer of the film, will be at the screening to discuss the film with the audience in a session moderated by Yuri Shevchuk.
Director Dmytro Hreshko: Since 2018, he has been start studying and filming documentaries and created his first documentary “66 Scenes of Uzhhorod.” In 2019, in the city of Uzhhorod, he completed a one-week directorial course in narrative film at the Skalka 2019 film school and completed a two-month course in author’s documentary film CinemaLab from the Kharkiv School of Visual Arts, under the guidance of Lyubov Durakova and Alisa Kovalenko. As a result, Hreshko created a TV documentary film about mountain rescuers and rescued tourists “Snow Leopards of the Carpathians” (2019) and a short documentary film “72 Hours” (2019). In 2020, in the city of Kyiv, he graduated from the Indie Lab 2020 documentary film school, curated by Dmytro Tyazhlov and Ella Shtyka. While continuing to explore the theme of “rescue”, Hreshko created a documentary short film about ambulance workers – “Save me, doctor!” (2020). The film received the award “Best Ukrainian film of 2020” at the 14th Lviv International Short Film Festival “Wiz Art” and a special jury award at the Kyiv International Film Festival “Molodist”. Since 2020, he has been actively participating in the organization of Transcarpathian Film Commission events for the development of cinema in Transcarpathia and is a co-founder and program coordinator of the Carpathian International Mountain Film Festival (CMIFF) in the city of Uzhhorod. In 2021, as director and DOP created the full-length documentary film “Mountains and heaven in between” about the workers of the ambulance station and the life of the villagers in the mountain village of Kolochava in Transcarpathia, with the support of Ukrainian Film State and producer Polina Herman. In 2022, the film was selected for the national competition of the 19 Docudays UA film festival, and the international premiere of the film took place at the Sheffield DocFest (UK) film festival. In 2023 premiered the documentary “King Lear: How We Looked for Love During the War,” about the life of migrants and their participation in amateur theater in the west of Ukraine. For now, he is working on the documentary “Divia” about the impact of society and war on the state of ecology and nature in Ukraine.
Trailer
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14wgE6CYco6JbCkddnknigBqvzylhMzz_/view?pli=1
