{"id":279739,"date":"2025-11-24T00:09:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T00:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/279739\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T00:09:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T00:09:17","slug":"ukraines-silent-flood-stuns-idfa-with-haunting-vision-of-faith-war-and-nature-united24-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/279739\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine\u2019s \u201cSilent Flood\u201d Stuns IDFA With Haunting Vision of\u00a0Faith, War, and Nature \u2014 UNITED24 Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk\u2019s documentary Silent Flood has won the IDFA Award for Best Cinematography, one of\u00a0the highest honors at\u00a0the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)\u2014the world\u2019s biggest documentary film festival.<\/p>\n

The film premiered on\u00a0November 16\u00a0in\u00a0IDFA\u2019s main competition, where only 12\u00a0documentaries were selected from around the world.<\/p>\n

Filmed by\u00a0four cinematographers\u2014Ivan Morarash, Oleksandr Korotun, Vyacheslav Tsvietkov, and Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk\u2014the documentary explores a\u00a0remote religious community living on\u00a0the banks of\u00a0the Dniester River in\u00a0Ukraine. Without electricity and surrounded by\u00a0nature, the group endures regular floods and, eventually, the full-scale\u00a0war.<\/p>\n

\"Director<\/a>
\n Director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk and team accept the IDFA 2025\u00a0Best Cinematography Award on\u00a0stage in\u00a0Amsterdam, with the winning still from \u201cSilent Flood\u201d displayed behind them.<\/p>\n

The jury praised the film\u2019s visual cohesion and emotional depth: \u201cEach frame is\u00a0like a\u00a0painting. In\u00a0a\u00a0country long shaped by\u00a0war, the film shows a\u00a0pacifist community whose world feels timeless and fragile. Despite being filmed by\u00a0four people, it\u00a0remains visually unified and deeply moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silent Flood received strong praise from international critics. Screen Daily described<\/a> it\u00a0as\u00a0\u201ca\u00a0lyrical portrait that approaches war with delicacy, through light, fog, and atmosphere.\u201d Variety called it\u00a0\u201cvisually poetic and remarkably cohesive.\u201d The International Documentary Association (IDA) highlighted its \u201crare observational purity.\u201d<\/p>\n

In\u00a0one scene, the community sends handmade bread to\u00a0Ukrainian soldiers\u2014quietly connecting their peaceful lives to\u00a0the front lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis film began with one sentence\u2014about a\u00a0religious commune in\u00a0western Ukraine,\u201d said producer Karina Kostyna. \u201cNow, after five years of\u00a0work, we\u2019re premiering at\u00a0IDFA and taking home a\u00a0cinematography award.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"A\u00a0silhouetted<\/a>
\n A\u00a0silhouetted horse-drawn cart passes through a\u00a0glowing golden tunnel of\u00a0trees at\u00a0dusk\u2014one of\u00a0the film\u2019s most iconic shots capturing visual serenity and timelessness.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0his acceptance speech, Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk spoke of\u00a0the war\u2019s scale and toll: \u201cThis film is\u00a0about scale\u2014time, landscape, and now resistance. In\u00a02022, Russia launched 1,100 drones at\u00a0Ukraine. In\u00a02024\u2014over 10,000. This year\u2014almost 50,000. Many of\u00a0the places you saw in\u00a0the film are already under occupation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silent Flood is\u00a0a\u00a0TABOR production, co-produced with Elemag Pictures, MDR, and ARTE. It\u00a0was made in\u00a0collaboration with over a\u00a0dozen European and Ukrainian partners, including Netflix, Docudays UA, Goethe-Institut, the Ukrainian Institute, and Eurimages.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Militantropos\u2014a documentary by\u00a0Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova, and Simon Mozgovyi\u2014was shortlisted<\/a> for the European Film Award. Premiering at\u00a0Cannes, the film explores how war transforms lives across Ukraine through a\u00a0shared human lens.<\/p>\n

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Every day we fight Russian disinformation and bring reports directly from the frontlines. Your help makes us stronger.<\/p>\n

\n Related articles\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukrainian director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk\u2019s documentary Silent Flood has won the IDFA Award for Best Cinematography, one of\u00a0the highest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-279739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}