Museums. Unoccupied(2024)

This Rain Will Never Stop(uk)

This Rain Will Never Stop takes the audience on a powerful, visually arresting journey through humanity’s endless cycle of war and peace. The film follows 20-year-old Andriy Suleyman as he tries to secure a sustainable future while navigating the human toll of armed conflict. From the Syrian civil war to strife in Ukraine, Andriy’s existence is framed by the seemingly eternal flow of life and death.

Crimea. As It Was(uk)

The film is a story about the officers, soldiers and seamen who did not betray their oath of loyalty to the people of Ukraine and their first hand accounts about Russia's invasion and annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. They continue to fulfill their military obligations on land, on sea and in the air today.

We Believe in Dinosaurs(en)

Williamstown, Kentucky, is home to the Ark Encounter – a “life-size” creationist museum filled with all of the creatures that traveled in Noah's Ark, including dinosaurs. With incredible access to the park leading up to its opening, the filmmakers expose the larger system behind the creationist movement, piecing together the many factors that have led to the museum presenting its information as historical fact, and the people who are fighting to set the scientific record straight. Amid a climate of science denial and a well-funded corporate behemoth, three Kentuckians (a local geologist, an ex-creationist, and an atheist activist) try their best to challenge the movement that is taking over their home state. Meanwhile, fervent believers work diligently to create the lifelike animatronics that will be on display in the Ark.

Crimea. The Stolen Peninsula(uk)

Documentary film about war crime — annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.

Painted Stories About the War(uk)

This is a story about the Ukrainian comic book industry. The authors introduce the audience to a still little-known and under-appreciated art form in Ukraine - drawn stories. Where did this art come from? When did it appear in our country? What forms did it take in the Soviet era and how did it change in the first years of independence?

Soft power. Move Europe(uk)

Director, choreographer, actress, singer – the usual professional roles for the heroines of this film stopped working at the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Like millions of Ukrainian men and women, who were saving themselves and their loved ones and volunteering. Creative pursuits returned later, but now in a new dimension. Iryna, Olena, Oksana, and Maryna became the voices that tell the world about Ukrainians, their culture and their struggle for freedom. But how can one be heard in a world where Russian propaganda has been spread for centuries?

Superpower(en)

Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman’s documentary, shot just before and after Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24th February 2022, and featuring several interviews with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In the Rearview(pl)

A Polish vehicle traverses the roads of Ukraine. On board, people are evacuated following the Russian invasion. This van becomes a fragile and transitory refuge, a zone of confidences and confessions of exiles who have only one objective, to escape the war.

King Lear: How We Looked for Love During the War(uk)

Due to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, tens of thousands of Ukrainians, fleeing the war, found refuge in Uzhhorod in western Ukraine. The local director decides to attract non-professional actors -displaced people - in bringing his dream into life - to stage the King Lear play. The theatrical performance helps them find themselves and their purpose in a new world where there is war, and the director finds an answer to the eternal question of what love is and why this world should not perish.

One Aloe, One Ficus, One Avocado and Six Dracaenas(uk)

What to take, what to leave? How important are material possessions when you’re trying to save your life? Packages from Ukraine – filled with everything and nothing – wait patiently under a bridge to be found, while a voice stirs memories of frivolous and treasured personal effects, in an apparent heart-breaking farewell letter to Kyiv.

David Attenborough's Natural History Museum Alive(en)

Regular opening times do not apply as we accompany Sir David Attenborough on an after-hours journey around London’s Natural History Museum, one of his favourite haunts. The museum's various exhibits come to life, including dinosaurs, reptiles and creatures from the ice age.

The Painter's Voice(en)

Paintings conservators at the Getty Center reveal details of their craft as they restore two large paintings by French master Jean-Baptiste Oudry.

Zelensky, The Story(fr)

Portrait of Volodymyr Zelensky: his beginnings as a comedian, his phenomenon series "State Servant", his ultra spectacular campaign, his election, his rivalry with Vladimir Putin... and his new status as the most admired leader in the world.

Selenskyj - Ein Präsident im Krieg(de)

Maidan(uk)

A chronicle of the civil uprising against the regime of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych that took place in Kyiv in the winter of 2013/14. The film follows the progress of the revolution: from peaceful rallies, half a million strong in the Maidan square, to the bloody street battles between protesters and riot police.

Leninland(ru)

At the peak of Perestroika, in 1987, in the village of Gorki, where Lenin spent his last years, after a long construction, the last and most grandiose museum of the Leader was opened. Soon after the opening, the ideology changed, and the flow of pilgrims gradually dried up. Despite this, the museum still works and the management is looking for ways to attract visitors. Faithful to the Lenin keepers of the museum as they can resist the onset of commercialization. The film tells about the modern life of this amazing museum-reserve and its employees.

The Homecoming(fi)

Sámi artefacts from the Finnish National Museum are returning home to Sápmi, while the holy drums of the Sámi people are still imprisoned in the basements of museums across Europe. The returning objects symbolise the dignity, identity, history, connection to ancestors and a whole world view that was taken from the Sámi people. Director Suvi West takes the viewer behind the scenes of the museum world to reflect on the spirit of the objects, the inequality of cultures and the colonialist burden of museums.

Traces: The Kabul Museum 1988(ja)

The Kabul National Museum, once known as the "face of Afghanistan," was destroyed in 1993. We filmed the most important cultural treasures of the still-intact museum in 1988: ancient Greco-Roman art and antiquitied of Hellenistic civilization, as well as Buddhist sculpture that was said to have mythology--the art of Gandhara, Bamiyan, and Shotorak among them. After the fall of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1992, some seventy percent of the contents of the museum was destroyed, stolen, or smuggled overseas to Japan and other countries. The movement to return these items is also touched upon. The footage in this video represents that only film documentation of the Kabul Museum ever made.

40 Under 40(en)

Some of them move. Others make noise. One weighs in at 700 pounds. Collectively, they represent the future of contemporary craft. Go behind the scenes of the "40 under 40: Craft Futures" exhibition, featuring traditional and non-traditional works of decorative art created by the top 40 American craft artists under the age of 40. Observe this wildly creative and diverse exhibition, assembled for the 40th anniversary of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery, and witness the challenges and rewards of bringing together 40 unique artists at the top of their craft.

Children beyond the war(en)