UFFB Short Film Competition 2025 Award
Statement of the international jury of the Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin, 26.10.2025
:: Winning film ::
A young woman living abroad tries to teach her mother, who lives back home in Ukraine, how to use Zoom and create an email account. What begins as a simple tutorial in technology gradually unfolds into a tender, funny, and deeply layered portrait of communication and its discontents, of what is spoken and what remains unsaid, of family codes that endure across silence, absence, and time.
This animated documentary plays brilliantly with form, finding wit and warmth in every frame. Its animation is simple yet never simplistic, and its vivid colors give emotional texture to a story that feels both intimate and universal. Through logins, windows and digital interruptions, the film reveals something far more profound about care, understanding, and longing.
We, the jury members, were moved by a film that captures the convergence of the trouble of communication with the generation gap, transforming technological glitches into emotional insights, and distance into re-connection. It is a film both playful and profound, wireless in the affection it transmits to its audience.
The winner of the Short Film Competition at this year’s edition of the Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin is…
“Can You Hear Me?“
by Anastazja Naumenko
:: Honorary mention ::
To the film that uncovers how echoes from the past have shaped our current reality and restores our memory so that, instead of simply saying ‘never again,’ we can enter a new cycle with a deeper understanding of who we are.
The film accomplishes this political act through poetic and sensual cinematography, bravely playing with timelines and showcasing the daring vision of a promising young filmmaking team.
An Honorary mention goes to…
“Critical Condition”
by Mila Zhluktenko
Festival Program 2025
Short Film Competition Jury 2025
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Darya Bassel
Darya Bassel has a background in TV and commercial production. In 2011, she joined Docudays UA IHRDFF, initially as a programmer and later as head of the industry platform. She became a producer in 2013 and has participated in Eurodoc, Ex Oriente, and EAVE.
Notable titles she has produced include OUTSIDE (2022), the drama BUTTERFLY VISION (2022), and the satirical drama THE EDITORIAL OFFICE (2024). Her latest title, SONGS OF SLOW BURNING EARTH, directed by Olha Zhurba, premiered in Venice in 2024 and received multiple awards.
photo © Hanna Hrabarska
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Nir Ferber
Nir Ferber is a lecturer for film theory and holds a PhD in film studies. Alongside his academic work, he works as a film programmer and is currently a member of the curating collective of the Jewish Film Festival Berlin-Brandenburg.
photo © Nir Ferber
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Konstanty Kuzma
Konstanty Kuzma is the co-founder and co-editor of the East European Film Bulletin, an online journal on Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern European cinema. He studied philosophy in Berlin, Berkeley, and Munich, and joined the Philosophy Institute at the University of Stuttgart as a post-doctoral researcher in 2024.
He is currently editing a book on film and urban spaces in Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine under contract with Routledge, and producing an archival film on forced labor during World War Two.
photo © Sebastian Šimek