Victoria Zadorska, Jury of the 13th edition of the Festival du film Merveilleux

Meet Victoria Zadorska, one of the jury of the 13th edition of the Festival du film Merveilleux.

In an interview, Victoria once said: “As a filmmaker, I strive to create stories that are thought-provoking and emotionally resonant. Whether it’s exploring complex human relationships or tackling important social issues, I want my films to spark conversations and leave a lasting impact on viewers.”

The drama, comedy, thriller and mystery genre has always fascinated Victoria. She is an independent Ukrainian writer, director and filmmaker who did her studies at Vasyl Stefanyk PNU, where she is a graduate of the “Drama and Film Actor” program. Then, she was student of “Serhiy Bukovsky Documentary Film Workshop 2022” and KNUTKiT named after Karpenko-Kary, where she gets a master’s degree in “television director” in 2022.

In 2022, in order to complete her master’s degree, she wrote and directed the short film “The Path.” In this film, she did not shy away from tackling an important subject that can be both frightening and shocking. “The Path” is an astonishing film about the meaning of life during war, when people still had faith in the phrase “never again.” Her film represents what war does to people, not just soldiers. When the war is not only on the front line, but it is also fought within each individual, forcing them to make difficult choices. As the poem in the film says: “But you are the only one to choose your path. So I choose to live. To live in a house not destroyed by a bomb. To stay safe, not to be trammed. I choose myself. I choose to be. To be, although the enemy want me to die. But we’ll stay alive. We just cannot die.”

Ukraine, its history ,and its society play an important role in Victoria’s inspirations. Since the beginning of the war, Victoria could not avoid talking about these events in her works. Always in the same spirit of continuity, the same year, Victoria wrote and directed “Three days before”. A short film of 3 minutes and half, which tells the story of a grandson and his grandfather walking along Babyn Yar three days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Inside the boy’s hand, a stick with inscribed sacred hieroglyphs that promise to protect against dark forces.

Victoria explained: “Three days before” is a story observed through the camera lens in Babyn Yar, which I filmed three days before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The meeting with two characters, a grandson, and his grandfather, became sacred. The words they said turned out to be somewhat horrifying and yet a stunning prediction of events that soon happened to all Ukrainians. It is not known whether the characters of my film will ever walk in Babyn Yar again. It is not known whether they “defended themselves from the dark forces.”

During the Second World War of 1939-1945, the German invaders massively shot and buried about 100,000 people in Babyn Yar, the vast majority of whom were Jews. During the Russian-Ukrainian war, on March 1, 2022, at 17:10, a Russian missile hit the Babyn Yar area. Five civilians were killed. Eighty years separate these events. Eighty years, during which the humanity was growing humane and repeated “Never again,” promising that there would be no war. It turns out that this was an illusion.”

“Three day before” won an award at the “FunFest – International Video Festival (Madeira Island, Portugal) and was selected for several other film festival.

Victoria Zadorska is also an amazing author of novels. She wrote 15 novels all around comic genre, adventure and love and folk fantasy, such as “Ya teper vid’ma” or “Popelyushka v mahichnomu sviti”. These texts had been read by more than 1M readers.

She’s currently working for AMO as screenwriter. AMO is international IT company that creates products and stories for millions of users.

Victoria Zadorska is a talented, innovative and versatile artist. We are thankful to have her as jury.

Her Instagram: Вікторія Задорська 🇺🇦| ЖИВА ПИСЬМЕННИЦЯ | сценаристка | режисер (@viktoria.zadorska) • Photos et vidéos Instagram