{"id":140322,"date":"2025-10-19T16:03:42","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T13:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theukrainians.org\/natalka-vorozhbyt\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T18:38:34","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T16:38:34","slug":"natalka-vorozhbyt-eng","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theukrainians.org\/en\/natalka-vorozhbyt-eng\/","title":{"rendered":"Natalka Vorozhbyt \u2014 an Artist at the Heart of Events"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Natalka Vorozhbyt is one of the most recognizable contemporary Ukrainian directors and playwrights. The series \u201cTo Catch the Kaidash\u201d and the film \u201cBad Roads\u201d highlighted Natalka\u2019s prowess as a showrunner. The films \u201cCyborgs\u201d and \u201cThe Wild Fields\u201d became evidence of her screenwriting talent. Vorozhbyt is one of the founders of the Topical Play Week, the Theater of Displaced People and the Theater of Playwrights. She has also written plays that have been staged in theaters in the U.K., the U.S., Germany and Sweden.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our conversation with Natalka takes place at Propysy, a festival for young authors. She is one of the mentors at this year\u2019s event, which aims to create a community and foster the next generation of people who will make Ukrainian culture. From time to time, future playwrights approach Vorozhbyt: they entrust her with a look at their first drafts and ask for advice during breaks between workshops. And I understand why: Natalka knows not only how to tell stories, but also how to listen.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[This interview was made possible thanks to the support of The Ukrainians Media community \u2014 hundreds of people who believe in independent, high-quality journalism. Join<\/a> to help us create meaningful content.]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The beginning of a long story<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI grew up in the 1990s, a period of complete hopelessness, and in quite a marginalized environment \u2014 being educated wasn\u2019t very fashionable,\u201d says Natalka. The future director wasn\u2019t lacking in artistic ambition: ever since she was quite young, she wrote poetry, songs and played guitar. In the questionnaires from schoolmates (remember those?) [In the early 2000s in Ukraine, it was extremely popular to have a special notebook with a fun questionnaire and give it to your friends to fill out \u2014 Ed.]<\/em>, she would note that she wanted to become an actor or a director. At that time, actors were superstars and role models to young people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natalka admits that she did not immediately enroll in university and spent some time \u201clearning about life from the inside out.\u201d Her mother\u2019s connections helped her get into the Institute of Culture, commonly referred to as \u201cKuliok\u201d [literally \u201cplastic bag,\u201d a colloquial nickname for the institute \u2014 Ed.]. <\/em>But the girl felt that she was not getting what she wanted there: \u201cI still had the dream of attending the Karpenko-Karyi University, but it seemed that only the elite studied there. I was convinced that they would never accept me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of her instructors advised her to enroll in the School of Contemporary Dramaturgy and Directing run by the Kyiv City Administration\u2019s Department of Culture. In charge of the school was Anatolii Diachenko, a navy officer from Sevastopol, who loved the theater and \u201csomehow wrote about five dozen plays.\u201d Vorozhbyt recalls that she knew almost nothing about dramaturgy at the time, and wasn\u2019t really reading plays, because to her they looked like \u201coddly written literature.\u201d Feeling no piety towards the theater, Natalka seized this creative opportunity: \u201cThey believed in me and promised to make me into a professional playwright within three years. At the time, I wondered \u2014 why does it take so long?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diachenko studied at the Literary Institute in Moscow, the only institution in the USSR where drama was taught as a separate discipline. It was he who suggested that Natalka enroll in this university. In Moscow, Vorozhbyt continued writing plays: \u201cI wrote because it was part of the institute\u2019s program. The institute, by the way, turned out to be a complete disappointment.\u201d Later, she found herself among the playwrights who were working with new drama, and that\u2019s where her real education began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cold sanatoriums and bad roads<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Screenwriting and directing are two different but equally important roles in the filmmaking process. When asked which one she prefers, the introvertedness of a screenwriter or the teamwork of a director, Natalka replies that at the moment, she feels more comfortable when she\u2019s alone. \u201cI\u2019m not much of a communicator, and in some ways I\u2019m even a bit of a sociopath, although you can\u2019t really tell. However,\u201d she adds, \u201cwriting doesn\u2019t always mean working in solitude.\u201d She means documentary theater, where plays are written on the basis of interviews in collaboration with the director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directing and writing engage different groups of art muscles. Natalka explains that being a director means leading a team, managing the process, and most importantly, believing in yourself and never doubting your decisions. \u201cHowever, I doubt all the time. It\u2019s one thing to doubt yourself when you\u2019re sitting alone in your office \u2014 go ahead and doubt all you like. But when you\u2019re in front of some 50 people\u2026 They can see it instantly. So you have to always pretend that you know where you\u2019re going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directing is also physically demanding: \u201cEverything I write takes place somewhere in the wilderness, or a village in the dead of winter, or cold sanatoriums, or bad roads, and that\u2019s where we have to shoot. When you\u2019re writing a play, you can say to yourself \u2014 that\u2019s enough writing for today. But you can\u2019t take a day off after a 14-hour shoot, as your next shoot day is tomorrow. However, exhausting work is quite an addictive drug.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she speaks about work, Vorozhbyt keeps coming back to the idea that universalism expands one\u2019s consciousness \u2014 it is invaluable to have the experience of screenwriting, directing, producing and acting. All of it together provides a better understanding of the filmmaking process. It also means you\u2019re less categorical about other people: \u201cMy only regret is that it took me so long to do it. I\u2019ve always wanted to be a filmmaker, but didn\u2019t actively pursue it until I got offered the job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Concentrated stories and drama as surgery<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every stage performance of a play is different from the last, even if the text remains the same. Film adaptation, on the other hand, gives a chance to immortalize a particular version and repeat it again and again. An eternal variance and a constant ideal. \u201cA theater play has innumerable advantages: if one director didn\u2019t do so well with the production, another one will improve it. I don\u2019t direct my own plays, though. I think theater productions are more about the director\u2019s vision rather than the playwright\u2019s, so any version of the play could be different. Cinema is also about the director\u2019s vision, but once it\u2019s done, it can\u2019t be undone \u2014 you can\u2019t fix anything. But since I started making movies, I realized that the \u201ccannot be undone\u201d option is what I enjoy more. Both processes are fascinating in their own way,\u201d says the artist. Then she adds that drama is hard in the sense that you have only an hour and a half or two hours to expand on a deep story \u2014 there is no time for the author\u2019s introspection or the descriptions of the characters\u2019 feelings. \u201cA drama is a concentrated story. In three to five sentences, you have to create the magic that a piece of prose can do in several pages.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If prose is medical treatment, and poetry is psychotherapy, then drama is surgery. Its concentration helps to weed out what\u2019s unnecessary and keep to the point.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Aside from time, a playwright must take into account the limitations of the genre, remember that a director can\u2019t possibly realize all their ideas, and even be mindful of certain actors\u2019 performing styles, if the play is written specifically for them. Also, plays barely get published in Ukraine, so you have to be ready that your work will be read only in professional circles. \u201cThe director always wins over the playwright in their interpretation,\u201d Vorozhbyt sums up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A life on pause and a satirical play about war<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natalka was only able to write again three months after the full-scale invasion began: \u201cAt the beginning, I had a feeling, like many other authors did, that words had failed, and art had failed. But I had to get on with my life, and frankly, I don\u2019t have many other skills.\u201d The playwright was approached by the Munich-based Kammerspiele theater with an offer to write a play about the refugee experience and the relations between Europe and Ukraine in this new reality. Natalka agreed for several reasons: it was a chance to do something useful for Ukraine, not go insane, and, of course, make some money. \u201cIt was impossible to realistically write about everything I was feeling \u2014 my inner despair was too deep. I was seeking a new genre to write in, and that is how this satirical play about our lives came to be. Black humor helped me in talking about this serious and difficult topic,\u201d Vorozhbyt explains. Among her key motivations was the desire to show people from other countries what is going on and who Ukrainians are. Such has been her path as a playwright since 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The play \u201cNon-existent,\u201d commissioned by a German theater, focuses on three refugee women who lost their homes. Natalka admits that losing her home and her country turned out to be the most horrific experience for her: \u201cWhen we were leaving, we had this feeling that it was all over, we would never return, and there would be nothing to return to (I do know how to be extra dramatic).\u201d When she talks about living abroad, she adds that she didn\u2019t feel like she had the right to write or talk about the war, \u201cas I am not there and not living through it.\u201d When Natalka came back to Ukraine for a few days in April 2022, she realized that, first of all, nothing had disappeared \u2014 Ukraine was still alive and kicking \u2014 and second of all, that she wouldn\u2019t be able to live anywhere else. \u201cIt was a huge relief. I didn\u2019t fully understand just how much I wasn\u2019t ready to live abroad. \u201cNon-existent\u201d was born out of despair, the emptiness I was feeling at the time. It felt like my life was on pause. The body gets older, but you no longer exist as an individual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Testimony on time<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first year of the full-scale invasion, non-fiction and reportage dominated over fiction, and many Ukrainian authors took on the task of documenting the ongoing events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cObviously, I feel the need to attest to what\u2019s going on around me \u2014 ever since 2014, my sense of civic responsibility has had a huge influence on everything I do.\u00a0 I would gladly take a break from this responsibility, but the times demand it,\u201d says the director. When she is approached with work offers on the topic of war, Natalka always says yes, despite \u201cinner psychological resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, if in 2014 she mostly worked in documentary theater and plays based on witness testimony, now Vorozhbyt wants not just to retell other people\u2019s stories, but to reimagine them artistically \u2014 to create a certain distance, imagine the future and expand her toolbox. \u201cBefore, the most important thing for me was documenting, but now I allow myself to be a writer. The war has been going on for too long for us not to look for new ways of talking about it,\u201d says Natalka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t wait \u2014 we have to be writing and filming\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pivotal novel about this war has likely not been written yet \u2014 longform writing requires time and distance. With cinema, though, it\u2019s different. When she ponders modern Ukrainian cinema, the director returns to her thoughts on how to reflect on war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome people want to make movies about battles, victories and this ultra-patriotic narrative. We need these kinds of movies, too, but they have to be made tastefully, earnestly and be based on real events. Those films are mostly made for our domestic audience, to pay our respects to the heroism and memory of our defenders and give ourselves a morale and motivation boost,\u201d says Vorozhbyt. She mentioned \u201cCyborgs,\u201d a film for which she wrote the screenplay. There is another important detail: such films cost a lot to make, so in conditions of limited budget availability, there won\u2019t be many of them. Cinema is changing, as is the point of view from which directors operate: \u201cThe reality has become much scarier, and with the tools available to us right now, we can\u2019t quite compete with real life,\u201d believes Natalka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an example of a successful portrayal of war, Vorozhbyt mentions \u201cHoneymoon\u201d by Zhanna Ozirna, a story about a young couple hiding from the Russians in Bucha during the occupation. Without showing the war directly, Zhanna explores this topic more deeply than a regular action movie could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, there is a demand for different kinds of films, Natalka believes, so the main thing is to continue working: \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t wait \u2014 we need to be writing and shooting. We don\u2019t have the right to stop, because we\u2019re in a very precarious situation. The more artistic and testimonial artefacts we leave behind, the more of Ukraine will exist in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pondering on the change in perspective in times of war, Vorozhbyt admits that Ukraine\u2019s victory is more important to her than any artistic achievement: \u201cIf I achieve something, but Ukraine disappears, there would be no meaning to that achievement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If my truth brings harm to my country, I\u2019d rather not tell it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Even if that means defeat for me as an artist.\u201d The director describes her art as a careful act of walking a fine line: not telling the whole truth and hinting at things, but without being insincere, because the audience can always feel insincerity. \u201cI truly can\u2019t write about everything that I want because of my civic responsibility. What\u2019s more important to me \u2013 raising a controversial topic or the victory of Ukraine? Of course, it\u2019s the latter,\u201d says Natalka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Entertaining the Western audiences with war<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether we like it or not, our war has fallen into the background for the Europeans. So, to remain in their consciousness, it\u2019s important to seek new ways of telling our story and surprise audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you write for a foreign audience, you have to manipulate them in some way. In \u201cGreen Corridors,\u201d I used humor and satire. As in, we\u2019re telling you about scary things, but we\u2019re also entertaining you. In \u201cNon-existent,\u201d I didn\u2019t mention Ukraine once, because the fear of losing your home is a universal one. This way, I\u2019m convincing the Europeans that this story is not so much about us, but about them, and that anyone could end up in a similar situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vorozhbyt mentions themes that always work abroad, such as the topic of abducted children, which elicits empathy. Polish producers recently approached the director with an offer for her to write a movie on this topic: \u201cEven though I don\u2019t want to be doing this, I couldn\u2019t say no to that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our interview with Iryna Tsilyk, we spoke about filming in Avdiivka: a large part of the filming locations no longer exists, and, sadly, some of the people who starred in the film were killed. It seems that many of our cities, at least for a while, will exist only as clay impressions documented in time, which, of course, is a tragedy. When thinking about documenting reality, Vorozhbyt recalls the headmaster of a school in Popasna from her play \u201cBad Roads:\u201d \u201cThat character was based on a real person, a history teacher named Viktor Shulik. He died in the war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Natalka talks about working in Avdiivka, Shchastia and Popasna \u2014 cities that have been either razed to the ground or occupied. \u201cI\u2019m especially proud of working with teenagers from those areas. At the time, they wore Russian symbols and dreamed of studying in Moscow. But after our continued contact with them, they remained loyal to Ukraine, and some of them, sadly, have already laid down their lives in defense of the Motherland,\u201d shared the director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visibility<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, \u201cBad Roads\u201d won a prize at the Critics Week in Venice. That same year, Iryna Tsilyk\u2019s debut feature \u201cThe Earth Is as Blue as an Orange\u201d won the Best Director award at the Sundance festival in the U.S. In 2022, Maksym Nakonechnyy\u2019s \u201cButterfly Vision\u201d made quite a splash in Cannes \u2014 Iryna was the co-writer of the film, and Natalka played one of the parts. Ukrainian cinema is gaining agency and visibility among Western audiences. \u201cI have a cautiously optimistic view on this matter,\u201d says Natalka. \u201cI think the Western audience has recognized that we\u2019re unique and different from our neighbouring countries. That\u2019s because our cinema is eye-catching and competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the process is currently stalled due to a lack of financing and a conflict between the professional community and the government. \u201cMany films are awaiting financing, and producers look for private and foreign investments. It would be right for the state to fund projects of artistic value, not the commercial ones. This fall, we\u2019ll have many premieres, but some of those films began production before the full-scale invasion. It\u2019s unlikely that we\u2019ll have as many next year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When thinking about the reasons for the stagnation in the film industry, Natalka talks about the lack of understanding of the strategy and the real mission of cinema, as well as a lack of communication from the government and erroneous staffing decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A social drama about a pear tree<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natalka Vorozhbyt became known to a wider audience as the showrunner of the TV series \u201cTo Catch the Kaidash,\u201d based on the Ivan Nechui-Levytskyi novel \u201cThe Kaidash Family.\u201d The proposal of adapting this classic literary work for the screen came from the then-producer general of STB, Volodymyr Borodianskyi. The people at the network thought that it would be a comedy, pitching it as \u201ca bit of fun for a general audience.\u201d Natalka, on the other hand, believed that Nechui-Levytskyi created a social drama. \u201cThe offer really spoke to me on a deep level, because it was one of my favorite books as a child. I knew those people since I was little \u2014 they\u2019re like my relatives and neighbors,\u201d says Natalka about the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vorozhbyt recalls growing up in a village, and, after moving to the city, returning there for the holidays: \u201cThe village is where I became myself.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Later on, as she studied in Russian-language schools in the city, she turned into a Soviet child: \u201cThe village was Ukraine. I didn\u2019t encounter Ukrainian city culture, only the Soviet one, but in Poltava Oblast, I felt the continuity and the firm connection to our roots very deeply, and I discovered my Ukrainian identity there. Every time I came back to Kyiv, it felt like going to a different country.\u201d Later, Vorozhbyt began paying attention to the problems of the village. The crisis of the 1990s led to an economic depression, and people drank heavily. In the last 15 years, rural areas finally started to develop, but then, the war came. \u201cMy place of strength is still there, in Poltava Oblast. I go there every year to regroup,\u201d says Natalka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Other people\u2019s texts and your own vision<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vorozhbyt wrote the screenplay for the film \u201cThe Wild Fields\u201d by Yaroslav Lodyhin, which was based on the novel by Serhiy Zhadan, \u201cVoroshilovgrad.\u201d When she reflects on working with someone else\u2019s text, she notes that time has worked in her favor, since the war has underscored the main points of the novel: \u201cThis story is not about fighting for one particular gas station, but for your land as a whole. The metaphor that the author had implanted has become crystal clear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When adapting someone else\u2019s work, the most important thing is cutting the insignificant parts, no matter how difficult it is: \u201cAs a result, we have to cut the scenes that don\u2019t impact the plot, but are important for worldbuilding. A lot of people read Zhadan precisely for scenes like that,\u201d adds Natalka. Some parts of \u201cThe Wild Fields,\u201d like the football game, were cut in the edit room \u2014 the plot took priority, although Vorozhbyt doesn\u2019t fully accept this principle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2024, Natalka worked at an art residency in Oxford. According to her, she went to the U.K. so that her daughter could go to university there, but Paraska made the decision to return home: \u201cDespite the beauty of our surroundings and the wonderful working conditions, I found it boring and difficult there, first and foremost from a moral standpoint. In Oxford, I almost finished writing three plays and one chapter of my novel. But when I returned to Ukraine, I didn\u2019t write a single line of prose, because life here doesn\u2019t allow space for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Oxford, Natalka connected with other female artists and cultural figures from Ukraine.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now, that whole year feels like a dream,\u201d sums up Vorozhbyt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A play about the Holodomor on the Shakespearean stage<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2009, Natalka wrote a play called \u201cThe Grain Store\u201d about a village in the midst of Holodomor. In 2010, \u201cThe Grain Store\u201d was staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. Later, Lviv director Andrii Prykhodko staged the play in Ukraine \u2014 according to Vorozhbyt, not very successfully. The 2022 staging by Maksym Holenko, however, has been a sell-out hit for several years now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When talking about her work on this play and its path to the Ukrainian stage, Natalka recalls that British theater representatives traveled to Moscow in search of themes for \u201cThe Russian Seasons\u201d at the Shakespeare Company, which had previously performed only Shakespeare plays. \u201cI was part of the Russian theater circles at the time, so I was invited to participate in this competition. Ten playwrights and 10 plays took part in it, and two made it to the finals \u2014 my \u201cGrain Store\u201d and one Russian play. I then brought up the question of national identity, and the project was renamed from \u201cThe Russian Seasons\u201d to something like \u201cRevolution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vorozhbyt speaks about the scale and ambitions of the Shakespeare Company: they wanted a big, \u201cShakespearean in scale\u201d play and didn\u2019t limit the playwrights in the number of characters or artistic devices. Natalka chose the topic of Holodomor, as it is one of our biggest tragedies. The Brits knew nothing about this genocide, but they were intrigued: \u201cI\u2019d read witness accounts and used my family history. At some point, the British director and costume designer came to Ukraine, traveled to the villages, and spoke with the older people. They were surprised to discover that the old folks weren\u2019t keen on talking about those times. Our older generation is so used to being under censorship that they\u2019ve forgotten how to speak about their trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bringing our kids back<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the moment, Vorozhbyt is working on a screenplay about the Ukrainian children brought back from Russia. Her work started when she went to a retreat in the Carpathian mountains for the families who managed to return their children: \u201cI interviewed them, and almost every conversation was worthy of its own screen adaptation \u2014 from the adventure of evacuating a horse from Crimea to a delicate psychological drama about a mother who got her child back, but afterwards, fell into a depression and started losing her memory, likely because of the difficult emotional burden of the last few years. Now this mother is hiding her condition and doesn\u2019t seek medical help, afraid that her child could be taken away from her again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The director explains that oftentimes, the return of the kids is not a happy ending, but a new coil in the spiral of this tragedy.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Natalka recalls another story, about a 13-year-old girl who shared that, in her occupied city, everything Ukrainian disappeared almost overnight: walls were repainted, advertisements taken down, and price tags in stores replaced with rubles. \u201cThis girl went to a store and was sold Ukrainian Mriya pepper [literally \u201cdream\u201d in Ukrainian \u2014 Ed.]. It must have been left behind by accident. The girl said she cried at that moment, and as I listened to her, I cried too.\u201d Natalka confesses that in calmer times she struggled with what to write about, whereas now she struggles with how to describe something indescribable: \u201cSo you sit down and learn how to write \u2014 you learn anew, every time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated from the Ukrainian by Liubov Kukharenko<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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