Film by Ukrainian director and veteran wins prestigious film festival in Kosovo

Ukrainian director and veteran Alisa Kovalenko received the main award of the international film festival DokuFest in the Human Rights Dox category for the documentary My dear Theo (With love from the front).

She announced her victory on her Facebook page, thanking the jury and the festival team.

While in Kosovo, Kovalenko said she felt how people still remember the war that happened 25 years ago.

“During these days here I have very clearly felt how behind the bright, colorful life of Prizren, behind these beautiful views, mountains and faces, there is a memory of the war. We have talked a lot here with different people about the memory of the past war here, 25 years ago, and about our war in Ukraine now, and we have felt a lot together. The stories told by their parents are still very much present in the memory of the younger generation,” the director noted.

Kovalenko said that with her film she wanted to build a bridge of memory between parents who have gone through or are going through the war in Ukraine and their children.

“I want these memories to be a source of light for us in these dark times, despite the pain,” the veteran added.

Alisa Kovalenko is known for her previous works – Alice in the Land of War (2015) and Home Games (2018), which were shown at more than 100 film festivals and received numerous awards. Her film We Will Not Go Out (2023) was recognized as the best Ukrainian documentary film of the year by the Ukrainian Film Academy, received 20 international awards and a nomination for the European Film Academy Award. In 2024, Kovalenko became a laureate of the international Chicken&Egg Award.

DokuFest is an international documentary and short film festival held annually in early August in the Kosovo city of Prizren. It was founded in 2002.