When the third Sunny Bunny LGBTQIA+ Film Festival opened in Kiev on April 18th, he faces a serious funding crisis with US President Donald Trump’s cancellation of financial support from USAID.
USAID’s “Change Communication Activities” programme previously worked with the Ukrainian government, the private sector and civil society to strengthen Ukraine’s democracy. One of the beneficiaries was Sunny Bunny, an event that evolved in 2023 from the strange film strands of the city’s longtime Morodist Film Festival.
“The main challenge was the budget,” says Bodanzuk, festival director for this year’s edition. “We don’t have the US funds we had before.
“In addition, many international organizations working with human rights and LGBTQIA+ groups were unable to support them due to lack of funding for projects in Ukraine,” adds Zhuk. “This means that we can’t hire many people to work for the festival and we can bring fewer people to Kyiv.
“We have some funding from the Ukrainian National Film Agency, which is important to show that the government is officially supporting the festival,” he continues. “However, it is a shame that we cannot get anything from the city of Kiev, which has not supported the festival for the past three years since the invasion.”
The festival is collaborating on a budget of 40,000 euros compared to 80,000 euros in 2024. It also comes with partners, including embassies in Spain, Italy and Argentina, along with the Czech Republic, the French Institute and the European Union. The UK Council is also collaborating on retrospectives of six classic odd films from the UK, including Derek German Caravaggio Andrew Hayes weekend. Zhuk hopes that more private donors may also be found.
Festivals cannot make up for the lack of funding by relying solely on ticket sales. “Tickets average 4 euros, but at this point we cannot raise this price due to the difficult economic situation in Ukraine,” Zhuk said. “We want people to come and see the movie.”
Sunny Bunny presents strange cinemas in Ukraine and internationally. This year, Olga Gibelinda will open as a Ukrainian documentary Queen of JoyIt premiered last month at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival.
It also includes screening for Truong Minh Quy’s Viet and Nampremiered at Cannes and won the London Film Festival Awards by Darren Thornton Mothers of four, It will open in the UK and Ireland this weekend.
The challenge of mounting the LGBTQIA+ festival in Kiev was always important, even before the Russian invasion. Sunny Bunny has never been directly targeted, but memories are refreshing during the 2014 Morodyst Festival, when the historic Zhovten cinema was the victim of an arson attack during the Morodyst screening of Mario Fan Fani’s French title. Summer night.
The cinemas were threatened to host the first edition of Sunny Bunny in June 2023.
Last year, the facade of Zhovten Cinema was sprayed with homophobic graffiti prior to the screening of a Ukrainian film Lessons of tolerance Arkady Neptalyuk, about a working-class family that seeks to overcome its homophobia and prejudice.
The festival provides security training to volunteers and staff. Volunteers and staff are equipped to respond to air raids and evacuation threats.
“We ask the police to patrol more aggressively when the screening is taking place, so we can respond quickly if there’s an incident,” Zhuk says.
The ongoing conflict also poses other more personal challenges, Zhuk says the brothers were killed fighting on the frontline earlier this year.
“One of my colleagues was drafted in January and the other has now joined the Army, meaning there is more work for the other teams on our small team, especially those who are programming.”
Sunny Bunny, Main Competition 2025
Eat the night
dir: Caroline Podge
Viet and Nam
Dir: Truong Minh Quy
Sad joke
You: Fabian Stam
Queen of Drama
dir: Alexis Langrois
Mothers of four
Director: Darren Thornton
high tide
dir: Marco Carbani
sauna
You: Matthias Bret
Night Stage
DUS: Phip with the Principal, Marcio Leoleon
skinny love
Say: Antonent Cigur
infinite
You: Wojciech Puuss
Cactus pear
Resurrection: Resurrection
From the competition
Queen of Joy
dir: Alha Gibelin
(TagStoTRASSLATE) Festival (T) Ukraine
