Kyiv IFF Molodist

The Kyiv International Film Festival “Molodist”, also known as the Molodist International Film Festival, is an international film festival that takes place every October in Kyiv, Ukraine. The festival has been established by the “Molodist” foundation and is a part of the list of specialized film festivals, accredited by FIAPF. The main objective of the festival is to analyze the main trends in the work of emerging filmmakers around the world, establish and broaden creative contacts between emerging filmmakers and between film schools, recognize new personalities in modern film art, integrate Ukrainian films into the global process of film art and industry, and develop Kyiv as a cultural capital of Europe.

The festival includes various sections such as student films, debut short films (fiction, animation, documentary), debut feature films, and debut professional full-length documentary films. The festival also includes a competition program for the new generation judged by their youngest jury, an attempt to speak with younger generation in cinematic language and to understand their way of thinking. The program is designed for kids & teens aged 10-14.

The festival also hosts major films and festival hits from around the world. It includes participants of the official selections and prize winners of the major film festivals of the world – Cannes, Berlin, Locarno, Karlovy Vary, etc. It also provides a free space for a creative dialogue through a sequence of unusual film events that go beyond the formal framework of the traditional festival programming.

The 52nd ‘Molodist’ was held in Kyiv from 21 to 29 of October 2023. The festival opened with the winner of '79 rendition of festival, Ivan Mykolaichuk’s film ‘Babylon XX’. Over the course of half a century ‘Molodist’ developed from the local, purely professional review of student films of the newly opened Faculty of Cinematography at the Karpenko-Kary University to a major international event that discovers world-class directors.