- The citizen and the state
- Activists / NGOs
- international audiences
Literary critic and poet Ivan Svitlychny, philologist Nadia Svitlychna, artist Stefaniya Shabatura, poet Ihor Kalynets, and poet Iryna Kalynets lived, loved, and created under the constant surveillance of the Soviet regime — in a time when even Christmas traditions could be considered a crime.
To restore the memory of these persecuted artists, the mythological Nativity Devil comes to life. His unlikely allies are contemporary performers who bring the dissidents’ stories back to the present through letters, memoirs, archival materials, and staged scenes.
Blending documentary, theatre, and animation, the film uncovers how Ukrainian culture endured despite censorship and repression. It becomes a story not only about loss and resistance, but about the persistence of cultural memory and the unbreakable desire for freedom.
Stanislava Doronchenko is a Ukrainian director and screenwriter. She was born in 1995 in Mariupol. She graduated from the Mariupol College of Arts and, in 2018, from the Documentary Film Directing program at the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Karyi University of Theatre, Cinema and Television, where she studied in Valentyn Marchenko’s workshop. She has worked as a television director, a first assistant director, and a line producer in film production.
She is the director of the documentary film My Friend Don Quixote (2018). For Echoes of the Silenced Carol, she served as director and co-screenwriter.
