History of Kinosaray

Once upon a time there were real small cinemas in Ukrainian villages, where people were able to watch Ukrainian movies. In the 1920s, the All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration organized more than 700 such cinemas in rural areas. In 1930 it was liquidated, in villages cinemas disappeared with it. Will cinema culture return to villages ever? We will tell you about a place where, now in the 21st century, people watch movies lying in a hay.
Every year the Kinosaray festival takes place in the Obyrok Art-Village in Chernihiv region. This place came back to life thanks to the filmmakers who had moved here.
Movies, videos, and TV shows were filmed here. Good movie has always been valued in Obyrok. To make people feel comfortable, a real cinema appeared on a place of an old barn: they made a screen, brought a projector with speakers, put some fresh hay instead of chairs. This is the place which people had started to call Kinosaray.
A new page in development began when, in 2011, the first large-scale Ukrainian film "Firecrosser" directed by Mykhailo Illyenko was shown in Obyrok. Mykhailo was so inspired with the atmosphere of the place that he suggested making Kinosaray one of the places for showing the "Open Night" Short Film Festival. Now that festival takes place in 100 places in Ukraine and abroad at the same time.
Thirteen years in a row, filmmakers and those who love watching movies have been coming together to Obyrok in the last weekend of June. During two days of the festival, we screen movies almost non-stop. When we watch Ukrainian films, someone from a creative team will definitely present it for us. So you can immediately communicate with the creators and find out what the author wanted to say.
Since 2022, the Kinosaray has been taking place in Kyiv due to the full-scale aggression of Russia against Ukraine. Because Obyrok Art-Village is located too close to the Russian-Ukrainian border. 
This year, we have extended our shows to Warsaw, Poland.