The Illusion of a Quiet Night

World premiere: Visions du Réel 2026 / Burning Lights Competition

On the night of July 27–28, 2025, forty cinematographers fanned out across Ukraine — from northern forests to southern steppes, from frontline positions to cities still absorbing the shock of air raids — to document a single summer night in a country four years into war.

The result is a collective portrait of nearly a hundred people spanning every region of Ukraine, including the occupied territories of Donetsk and Crimea. For some, the night brought closeness and celebration; for others, confrontation with loss, danger, or the quiet grind of another work shift.

What emerges is a nation that has changed in ways both visible and invisible. Fear has settled into daily life, reflected in the eyes of animals, in forests that feel darker, in the wind moving through ruined cities. And yet life continues to pulse: in moments of tenderness, endurance, and ordinary courage.

This is not a film about surviving the night. It is about knowing, somewhere beneath the exhaustion and the threat, that it will pass.

A FILM BY Olga Chernykh | Ukraine | 2026 | 70’