Valentyn Vasyanovych’s To the Victory!, which won the Platform Award at TIFF 2025, looks at the war in Ukraine from a perspective that is not often talked about. It envisions a near future in which, despite the war’s end, the women and children who fled at the conflict’s onset do not return to their war-ravaged homeland.
Vasyanovych takes on the duties of writer, director, editor, co-DP, producer, and lead actor in the semi-autobiographical story of filmmaker Valyk, who chooses to stay and keep shooting films with his friends instead of leaving to reunite with his wife and daughter.
Consisting of lengthy, static shots, it is a darkly funny, often compelling cautionary tale on wars never truly ending once they start.
