SCREENINGS & AWARDS

World Premiere: Berlin International Film Festival – Forum Section 2024

2024 Thessaloniki IDFF (Greek Premiere)
2024 CPH:DOX (Danish Premiere)
2024 Docville (Belgium Premiere)
2024 Hong Kong IFF (Asian Premiere)
2024 New Directors / New Films (North American Premiere)
2024 ZagrebDox
2024 BAFICI – Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival
2024 Hot Docs (Canadian Premiere)
2024 Crossing Europe (Austrian Premiere)
2024 Ukraine on Film Festival Brussels
2024 Beldocs (Serbian Premiere)
2024 Krakow Film Festival (Polish Premiere)
2024 International Film Festival Innsbruck
2024 Docudays UA (Ukrainian Premiere)
2024 UnderHill International Film Festival 
2024 DC/DOX
2024 Art Film Festival
2024 Festival La Rochelle (French Premiere)
2024 Galway Film Fleadh (Irish Premiere)
2024 Ceau Cinema (Romanian Premiere)
2024 Dokufest
2024 Melbourne IFF (Australian Premiere)
2024 Oradea Summer Film
2024 Mimesis DFF
2024 Sarajevo Film Festival
2024 Baltic Sea Docs
2024 International Human Rights Film Festival Albania
2024 HIFF – Love & Anarchy
2024 Ukrainian Film Festival in London
2024 Sofia Documental (Bulgarian Premiere)
2024 Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival
2024 Festival do Rio
2024 Filmfest Osnabrück
2024 Mediterranean Film Festival Široki Brijeg
2024 Bogota International Film Festival (Colombian Premiere)
2024 Lima Alterna Film Festival (Peruvian Premiere)
2024 CinEast
2024 Screening Rights FF
2024 Astra Film Festival
2024 Ukranian Film Festival Berlin
2024 AFI FEST (West Coast Premiere)
2024 Jihlava FF (Czech Republic Premiere)
2024 Virginia Film Festival
2024 Verzio Film Festival (Hungarian Premiere)
2024 ZINEBI (Spanish Premiere)
2024 Centre Film Festival
2024 IDFA (Dutch Premiere)
2024 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, PÖFF (Estonian Premiere)
2024 ExGround Film festival
2024 Filmmaker Fest (Italian Premiere)
2024 European Film Forum SCANORAMA (Lithuanian Premiere)
2024 RIDM
2024 WATCH DOCS. Human Rights in Film IFF
2024 Eastern Neighbours Film Festival
2024 Moldox

And more: Kino Xenix, Switzerland, LAB 1, Month of European Film Yerevan, Dealing With the Past (special program SFF, in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung), Ukrainian Film Week Spain

AWARDS

• Special Mention for Amnesty International Film Award at Berlin International Film Festival 2024
• Special Mention by Ecumenical Jury at Berlin International Film Festival 2024
• Special Mention in Documentary Competition at Hong Kong IFF 2024
• SIGNIS Award at BAFICI 2024
• Best Direction at BAFICI 2024
• Silver Horn for Best Film on Social Issues at Krakow Film Festival 2024

With its distinctive aesthetic approach, we predict Intercepted is a film that will live long in the memory of audiences. Recordings of mobile phone conversations between Russian conscripts and family members create the image of a fractured society. Mothers, sisters and partners become complicit in the banality of evil. Powerful cinematic images of broken landscapes these same soldiers witnessed in Ukraine frame the audio, forming a compelling & original perspective on the present conflict.

Jury Statement, Silver Horn Award for Best Film on Social Issues at Krakow Film Festival 2024

• FIPRESCI Award at Krakow Film Festival 2024
• Best International Documentary Award at Galway Film Fleadh 2024
• Peace Film Award at Filmfest Osnabrück 2024

“Peace is an abstract term that comes in many forms and ways. And more often than not it is missing. During the last three days we saw a broad variety of films that took us to many very different places in the world and showed us a diversity of conflicts. Struggles for peace occur on a very personal level but also in a systematic way across generations, borders and between nations. We were really impressed by all of the films we have seen and the filmmakers who courageously introduced us to their experiences and stories.

Like the shattered windows of buildings in a war zone, the film we have chosen gives a unique insight into what lies behind the complexities and inner workings of people affected by invasion and war. While it is depicting a very current conflict it also reveals a universal truth about humanity. Through the combination of captivating images and horrifying audio, it exposes the dehumanizing nature of war both for the victims and the aggressors. We have therefore decided to give the Friedensfilmpreis Osnabrück / The Peace Film Award Osnabrück to INTERCEPTED.”

Jury Statement, Peace Film Award at Filmfest Osnabrück 2024, Jury members: Katharina Franck, Lautaro Colace, Sarvnaz Alambeigi

• Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at 2024 Gotham Film Awards
• Main Competition Winner at European Film Forum SCANORAMA 2024
• Grand Prix in the National Feature Film Competition at RIDM 2024
• WATCH DOCS Award for Best Feature-length Documentary in the Main Competition at WATCH DOCS. Human Rights in Film IFF 2024

This year’s winning documentary offers a unique perspective on the war in Ukraine, juxtaposing meticulous tableaus of shattered landscapes, destroyed houses and ruined interiors with the raw audio of intercepted phone calls between Russian soldiers and their families. Without depicting a single battle, the film captures the devastating cruelty, absurdity and humanity of conflict, exposing the deep scars it leaves on both the aggressors and the victims. Through its bold yet sober cinematic approach, it shows a society fractured by violence and propaganda and confronts the moral disintegration wrought by war, making it both a striking artistic achievement and a vital historical record. 

Jury Statement, WATCH DOCS Award for Best Feature-length Documentary in the Main Competition at WATCH DOCS. Human Rights in Film IFF 2024

LUX Audience Award Nominee 2025

PRESS

Reviews: Filmkrant (NL), De Docupdate (NL), Hyperallergic, RogerEbert.com, The New York Times, In the Seats, Indiewire, Criterion – The Daily, Variety, The New York Times, Filmmaker Magazine, Unseen Films, The New York Sun, Book and Film Globe, J.B. Spins, Eye for Film, Hammer to Nail, The Film Stage, Novaya Gazeta, FLM, Filmkommentaren.dk, Indie Eye, The Film Verdict, Ubiquarian, International Cinephile Society, Journey into Cinema, Cineuropa, Screen Daily – Acquisition Announcement
Interviews: POV Magazine, Filmmaker Magazine, Voice of America, Voice of America TV, East Journal, Vita, il Manifesto, Business Doc Europe

***

““The movie’s stylistic tension, between images of life being lived (or having been lived), and disembodied voices portending death, connects the dots between ideology and action, between propaganda and bloodshed.” … “it points its microphone unflinchingly at the darkest parts of the human soul, while forcing the viewer to hold the camera and search for the brutality within its images and empty spaces. It makes the audience, and their recognition, a necessary ingredient to portraying the bigger picture.”

Siddhant Adlakha, Indiewire

***

“The terrific Ukrainian documentary is an austere and harrowing chronicle of life, death and indifference.”

Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

***

“Considered in light of Karpovych’s previous dispatches on the war for Al Jazeera’s 24-hour coverage, it’s worth highlighting the cinematic distinction, and most importantly, the visual and pictorial intelligence, of what we see. It chimes with a trend in depictions of wars and atrocities to show them – if that at all – in a deferred, oblique manner: it’s the finger on the trigger, and then the dissipating smoke, with the explosion itself erased.“

David Katz, Cineuropa

***

★★★★★★ — “The film is a masterly done narrative construction with an image side and a sound side that each works on its own. … The director is a true “auteur”.”

Tue Steen Müller, Filmkommentaren.dk

***

“Interecepted is a heavy, hair raising watch that brings the terror of war to the viewership without a stain of blood. Executed with technical precision and with carefully selected images to accompany the excerpts of phonecalls, it creates the tension which does not ebb away until the film’s final scene.”

Marina D. Richter, Ubiquarian

***

“This is a powerful evocation of the horrors of war. The stark absences stir the darkest recesses of the human imagination.”

Redmond Bacon, Journey into Cinema

***

“The silences during some of these exchanges speak volumes in a movie that — as these private talks play over images of ruined lives — underscores the horrific intimacy of war. “Intercepted” is yet another crucial eyewitness document of the Russia-Ukraine war, one that makes the personal stakes painfully vivid.”

Manohla Dargis, The New York Times