Ukrainian Film Academy, Netflix pass 180 grants since 2022

The Ukrainian Film Academy’s support programme with Netflix has made more than 180 grants since 2022, according to five-year figures Netflix published on Friday 13 November. More than 1,200 film professionals have taken part, and more than 45 projects have had development support, of which over 30 were later pitched at international festivals and 17 won awards.

What began as emergency relief now works as a development slate. This year’s round put $15,000 into each of 15 director-driven fiction features at script stage, $225,000 in all. Netflix calls that segment one of the slowest-developing in Ukrainian cinema, and the one that shapes its international reputation. The academy named the projects in May. They include new films by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy (The Tribe), Valentyn Vasyanovych (Atlantis), Nariman Aliev (Homeward) and Antonio Lukich (Luxembourg, Luxembourg).

Key facts

2026 round: 15 script development grants of $15,000 each for original fiction features of 70 minutes or more, $225,000 in total, paid in hryvnia at the interbank rate
Since 2022, per Netflix: more than 180 grants, more than 1,200 participants, more than 250 people given tailored training
Development support: more than 45 projects, over 30 of them pitched at international festivals, 17 with awards
Best-known alumnus: Traces, by Alisa Kovalenko and Marysia Nikitiuk, Ukraine’s submission for best international feature at the 99th Academy Awards

From stipends to a slate

The partnership started in the first months of Russia’s full-scale invasion, when Ukraine’s film support system came to a halt. It paid stipends to filmmakers who had lost work or left the country, alongside grants for scripts and for finishing films in post-production. Five grant rounds on, it also runs training and mentoring with international experts. House of Europe, EAVE (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs) and the New York Film Academy have partnered on individual programmes. The academy, founded in 2016 and now counting more than 600 members, also presents the Golden Dzyga, Ukraine’s national film awards.

Netflix says alumni projects have reached Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Toronto. Traces, a documentary about Ukrainian women who survived sexual violence during the war, screened in the Berlinale’s Panorama this year before Ukraine chose it as its Oscar entry. Pavlo Ostrikov’s U Are the Universe, which had a post-production grant in 2023, premiered at Toronto in 2024 and this year won 10 Golden Dzygas, including best film, director and screenplay. Olha Zhurba’s Songs of Slow Burning Earth was selected for Venice, and Militantropos, by Yelyzaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova and Simon Mozgovyi, for the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes.

Where a $15,000 grant leads

Nikitiuk’s Noah is the programme’s clearest example of a small grant drawing larger money. It received a screenwriting grant in 2024, then production funding from the European Solidarity Fund for Ukrainian Films and a place at Karlovy Vary’s KVIFF Central Stage. At the Odesa International Film Festival’s pitching programme this year it won support from the Bright Point Skalyha Foundation and promotional backing from Kyivstar TV. Netflix adds that the second part of a planned trilogy has also had a development grant, without naming it.

This year’s class already has a follow-on. Slaboshpytskiy’s Deus ex machina, a reconstruction of the Russian occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, was one of 20 projects awarded €10,000 each by International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund in August.

The 2026 grantees

Five producers from EAVE’s network chose the projects: Kristina Åberg of Atmo (Sweden), Jonas Dornbach of Komplizen Film (Germany), Mariusz Włodarski of Lava Films (Poland) and two European Film Academy board members, Marija Razgutė of M-Films (Lithuania) and the board’s chair, Ada Solomon (Romania). Each grant also covers an English translation of the script and sessions with EAVE script consultants. English titles below are those published by EAVE.

Bittersweet, with a Faint Trace of Nitro Compounds, written and directed by Mykola Zasieiev, produced by Mykola Korotkiy
Deus ex machina, written and directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, produced by Roman Klympush
In Bloom, written and directed by Yura Katynsky, produced by Alexandra Bratyshchenko
Intimate Scene, written and directed by Zhanna Ozirna, produced by Valeria Sochyvets
Light Sensitivity, written and directed by Nikon Romanchenko, produced by Kateryna Gornostai
Maternal Instinct, written by Andrii Babik, directed by Oleksandr Budonnyi, produced by Olha Panteleimonova
New Story, written and directed by Valentyn Vasyanovych, produced by Iya Myslytska
Nine Checkpoints, written and directed by Myroslav Latyk, produced by Oksana Ivanyuk
Portrait of the Tyrant, written and directed by Antonio Lukich, produced by Anna Yatsenko
Skein (working title), written and directed by Alina Panasenko, produced by Lyuba Knorozok
Stars in the Dregs, written and directed by Nariman Aliev, produced by Volodymyr Yatsenko
The Falling of Bakhmut, written and directed by Marysia Nikitiuk, produced by Olha Bregman
The Shape of Light, written and directed by Egor Olesov, produced by Pavlo Cherepin
The Slum Boxer, written by Anna Smirnova, directed by Marko Podolian, produced by Kateryna Laskari
What’s Wrong With You, Adriane?, written by Anastasiia Hetman, directed by Maryna Sofiichuk, produced by Eduard Yevtushenko

Our reading

The 2026 list leans on proven names. Five of the 15 writer-directors already have films with Cannes, Venice or Berlin selections behind them: Slaboshpytskiy, whose The Tribe won the Critics’ Week grand prize in 2014; Vasyanovych, whose Atlantis took the Orizzonti award for best film in Venice in 2019; Aliev, whose Homeward played Un Certain Regard the same year; Lukich, whose Luxembourg, Luxembourg was in Orizzonti in 2022; and Nikitiuk. Two of the projects come from ForeFilms, the company of Volodymyr and Anna Yatsenko, whose projects Netflix says have now won grants from the programme eight times. At $15,000 a project, the scheme now works as much as a bridge for established auteurs between larger financings as a first door for newcomers.

The programme’s own figures do not line up. The academy’s grants page and EAVE’s programme page, repeating figures first published with the call in March, say that over the first four years script grants backed 73 projects, post-production grants 30 films and stipends 200 people, with more than 900 taking part in training and mentoring. Netflix’s five-year release counts “over 180 grants” in all and “over 45” projects with development support. Neither side says how its categories are defined.

Anna Machukh, the academy’s executive director, described the scheme as an example of how “support at a moment of crisis can gradually evolve into a long-term system for developing the entire industry”. The Yatsenkos, at the centre of the anniversary session on 5 November, put the next task in market terms: to tell stories that European audiences see “not as something exotic, but as stories of other Europeans who are living in slightly different circumstances”.

Traces is also in the Standing with Ukraine strand at Tallinn Black Nights this month, and Ukrainian titles are in competition at FilmFestival Cottbus. More on film funding and Netflix.

Netflix and the Ukrainian Film Academy pass 180 grants in five years of support

Key facts

From stipends to a slate

Where a $15,000 grant leads

The 2026 grantees

Our reading

Sources

Netflix and the Ukrainian Film Academy pass 180 grants in five years of support

Key facts

From stipends to a slate

Where a $15,000 grant leads

The 2026 grantees

Our reading

Sources

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