Ukrainian documentary Porcelain War nominated for Oscar 2025 - What is known
Porcelain War has been nominated for Oscar 2025 (photo: KinoRium)
The Ukrainian documentary film Porcelain War has been nominated for Oscar 2025. The film will compete in the Documentary Feature Film category.
What is known
Porcelain War will compete in the same category in which Mstyslav Chernov's 20 Days in Mariupol won last year.
The film Porcelain War was co-produced by Ukraine, America, and Australia. The plot tells the story of ceramic artists: Slava Leontyev, who also directed the film, his wife Ania Stasenko, and Andrii Stefanov.
After the beginning of full-scale Russian aggression, they stayed in Kharkiv, and despite the great threat, they continued to decorate the houses destroyed by the occupiers with porcelain figurines. The protagonists turn the fragility of porcelain into a symbol of indestructibility and strength of spirit.
Porcelain War is on the list of nominees for the Oscars 2025
The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last year, where it won the Grand Prix in the US Documentary section. The film has also received 37 awards and 27 nominations at international film festivals.
The Sundance jury described this film project as "a quest for goodness while resisting a totalitarian system and preserving humanity."
As the reviewer of The Hollywood Reporter commented, watching Porcelain War is like "listening to a great poet recite, where each frame surprises with its own visual metaphor, sometimes stunning, sometimes offensive, but always admirable."
There is a lot of beauty in Porcelain War and powerful artistry behind it, but I have never watched a documentary with so many visual metaphors and so little faith in the viewer to catch them. It's a little overwhelming and a little insulting at the same time. And the fact that it most often leans toward the former explains why it won the festival's highest award in the US documentary competition," the review said.
Other contenders for Oscar 2025 in the same category
Along with the film The Porcelain War, the following works will also compete in the Best Documentary Feature category:
- Black Box Diaries. Directed by Shiori Ito, the film documents the investigation and case of sexual abuse in Japan;
- No Other Land tells about the destruction of Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta in the West Bank. The 2024 film was directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor in their directorial debut.
- Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat - a film directed by Johan Grimondprez about the Cold War;
- Sugarcane - a film directed by Julian Brave NeuzeKet and Emily Cassie, which is an investigation into the system of residential schools for Indians in Canada.
Oscar 2025 (photo: Getty Images)
The 97th Academy Awards is scheduled for March 2 this year and will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
Find out the names of the nominees for the Golden Raspberry 2025 anti-award.
Sources: Oscar-2025 nominees announcement online broadcast, The Hollywood Reporter, information about the movie Porcelain War from the Wikipedia page.
