On 5 December, the 19th Travelling Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival began at the Ternopil Regional Universal Scientific Library. The opening had to be postponed due to the air raid siren, but later, after the danger had passed, the screening of the film Tales of a Toy Horse by Ulyana Osovska, Denis Strashny still took place.

According to security regulations, the library must stop its work during an air raid siren. Although spectators and journalists began to gather in the reading room an hour before the opening of the 19th Travelling Docudays UA, library director Vasyl Vitenko was adamant and ordered everyone to go to the shelter.

In the intimate and warm atmosphere of the shelter, an impromptu briefing of Kherson colleagues, who brought Oleksandr Korniakov's photo exhibition "Unconquered Kherson" to Ternopil, began spontaneously.

Opening of the 19th Travelling Docudays UA in Ternopil

Oleksandr managed to create a photo chronicle of the life of the city during the occupation lasting six months, as well as to record numerous actions of non-violent patriotic resistance of the people of Kherson to the occupying power of the Russians. Recently, his photos were published by international news agencies: Reuters, The Times, The Guardian, BBC, Aljazeera, and many others. The Ternopil audience also saw these photos within the 19th Travelling Docudays UA. The exhibition took place in the regional library on 5-7 December and then was moved to Chortkiv.

The air raid siren did not last long, and Ternopil was not hit by rockets. Those wishing to attend the Travelling Docudays UA event waited and joined the festival's opening after the danger had passed.

The event began with the civil public action "Free Maksym Butkevych from captivity." The action participants appealed to the President of Ukraine, the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the SSU and the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War with a persistent request to do everything necessary to establish the whereabouts and conditions of detention of the prisoner of war Maksym Butkevych, journalist and human rights defender. One of the demands of the action is his release from Russian captivity as soon as possible.

Opening of the 19th Travelling Docudays UA in Ternopil. Public action "Free Maksym Butkevych from captivity!"

The opening film of Travelling Docudays UA-2022 in Ternopil was the film Tales of a Toy Horse by Ulyana Osovska and Denis Strashny.

This story is about the search for kindness in the midst of war, which is why it is called a "tale". The protagonist of the film, Anatolii Ljutjuk, is a real person born in the village of Velyki Birky, near Ternopil. Now he is a monk and an artist living in an ancient stone tower in the centre of Tallinn, Estonia. Anatolii regularly travels to Donbas with humanitarian aid, prays for nature, and creates homemade books.

In his early youth, in 1969, Anatolii graduated from the school of applied folk art in Vyzhnytsya. After that, his whole life was connected with the capital of Estonia, then still the Estonian SSR. Here he gained recognition as an artist, public figure, founder of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church community, leader of the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Tallinn, and a monk of a Catholic monastery.

Since the beginning of the Russian aggression in Donbas in 2014, Anatolii has been carrying out a charitable mission with the support of the Estonian state and community to help people in the war-torn region.

A still from the film Tales of a Toy Horse by Ulyana Osovska and Denis Strashny

The screening took place within the 19th Travelling Docudays UA in Ternopil.