Mariia Ponomarova

Archive available for: Mariia Ponomarova

• Foto
  Writers Unlimited 2025 – Friday Night Unlimited

  Movies that Matter x Writers Unlimited Festival Special: 'Our Daily War'

  Writer Andrei Kurkov and filmmaker Mariia Ponomarova are from Ukraine. Kurkov still lives there, Ponomarova lives in Rotterdam. Both their work deals with Ukraine and is strongly influenced by the war.

  In what circumstances did their work come about? What is their working method and what are the differences in approach between a writer and a filmmaker? What do they hope to trigger in the reader or viewer with their texts or film?

  Kurkov and Ponomarova will read and show excerpts from their work and react to each other's texts and images under a discussion moderated by Bahram Sadeghi. A cross-over programme with film and literature, on art and human rights, co-organised by Writers Unlimited and Movies that Matter. English spoken.

  Andrei Kurkov is a Ukrainian writer world famous for the mix of harsh realism and absurdist humour in his novels and non fiction books. He is a respected commentator on the situation in his country. In The President's Last Love, Kurkov employs humour and cynicism to describe how a boy manages to work his way up to become the most powerful man in the country. Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev, his eyewitness account of political unrest in the Ukraine, was published in 2014. Dairy of an Invasion (2022) and Our daily war (2024) are collections of Kurkov's writings and broadcasts. In 2024, he published The Silver Bone, the first part of The Kyiv Mysteries, his series of crime novels in historical settings. The second part The Stolen Heart will be published in 2025; the third part The Public Sauna Case is in development.

  Mariia Ponomarova is a Ukrainian film director, creative producer and film industry professional based in The Netherlands since 2014. Mariia studied directing at Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema & Television in Ukraine graduating in 2013. In 2016 she completed the Master of Film artistic research programme at the Netherlands Film Academy. Fiction and documentary films Mariia worked on were screened at such acclaimed festivals as DokLeipzig, IDFA, Sarajevo FF, Sheffield DocFest, Chicago IFF, Krakow FF, Clermont-Ferrand ISFF, Go Short ISFF, Palm Springs SFF and more. Her debut feature documentary Nice Ladies had an international premiere at HotDocs and received a Special Mention at DocudaysUA IHRFF. Mariia is a member of the European Film Academy and a Senior Consultant at the Documentary Association of Europe.
  
  
  Bahram Sadeghi works as a programme maker and debate leader for Pakhuis de Zwijger and Movies that Matter, among others. In 2021, he published his second book, The Attack That Changed Our Lives, in which Bahram describes the impact of an attack in the Sinai desert, both on the lives of those directly involved and on his own life.

  Festivaltip: Ukrainian writer Andrei Kurkov performs in the 2025 festival also during The Flame of Freedom (Thursday 23 January 2025) in which he reads his festival opening speech, and during Saturday Night Unlimited (25 January 2025, Theater aan het Spui) as a participant of the programme Writing in Times of War, together with US historian and writer Timothy Snyder and the Dutch-Ukrainian author Lisa Weeda.

  Festivaltip 2: the upcoming festival edition of Movies That Matter takes place from 21 up to and including 29 March 2025 in Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag.