Not Cowering: Inside Kyiv’s Cinema Underground

The Kyiv Cinema Society was created to fill a cultural gap. Two years on, it’s become something more than a film club. Make us preferred on Google Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied Audience watches film. (Photo by Kyiv Cinema Society) Content Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied Flip Make us preferred on Google When the air raid sirens sound over Kyiv, most movie theaters halt their screenings and usher audiences into basements or parking garages. At the Kyiv Cinema Society , the projector keeps running. That’s because the society holds its screenings at Kino42 ’s underground movie theater in Kyiv’s trendy Podil district. The underground theater can also serve as a bomb shelter. Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official . Kino42 theater exterior. (Photo by Kyiv Cinema Society) The symbolism isn’t lost on Kyiv Cinema Society Founder Chad Garcia. “We can try to live our lives as richly as possible, or we can all just cower in a bomb shelter,” he told Kyiv Post following the screening of a 1970s neo-noir film. “I mean, we are in a bomb shelter – but we’re not cowering. We’re experiencing great art together.” Garcia, an American, co-founded the society roughly two years ago with Mark Wilkins, an expat from Switzerland, and a small group of supporters. The organization hosts regular screenings of classic and international films in their original languages. After Russia’s full-scale invasion, Garcia relocated to Lisbon. He lived across the street from a cinémathèque that screened classic films daily in their original languages. He became a near-daily fixture. Other Topics of Interest Ukrainian Ambassador Urges Trump Administration to Reinstate Russian Oil Sanctions Olga Stefanishyna warned that allowing Moscow to profit from the Middle East escalation fuels attacks on Ukraine and supports US adversaries. Kyiv Cinema Society Founder Chad Garcia speaking in front of Kyiv Cinema Society. (Photo by Kyiv Cinema Society) When he returned to Kyiv, Garcia found that no equivalent existed. The city’s established cinemas seemed to primarily screen films dubbed into Ukrainian. “I was really at the end of my rope trying to find films in the original language,” Garcia said. The society he founded fills that niche but has grown into something beyond a repertory film program. Members have organized biannual picnics outside the city – bus trips to the countryside with bonfires and food. A community, Garcia says, has formed around the screenings. Viola, a member for approximately two years, said she was drawn in through a group chat and has attended regularly since. A recent stretch of personal commitments kept her away, but she said she plans to return in June. For her, the screenings themselves are only part of the draw. “The most valuable thing is to share your thoughts, your feelings afterwards, when we have the discussion,” she said following a recent screening. She said that this is something you can’t get just from watching a film at home. Audience watches film. (Photo by Kyiv Cinema Society) That post-screening discussion is a consistent feature of the society’s events – an open conversation among attendees that Garcia says has taken on a particular character in the context of the war. “People have really, really civil conversations, and I think that might be connected to the war,” he said. “It seems like the worst of human nature has been put aside a little bit in Ukraine until we’re able to win this war. It’s like we are kind of all brothers and sisters.” “Maybe I’m romanticizing,” he added. “But I do feel that.” The choice to screen in a shelter is both logistical and symbolic. Under Ukrainian civil defense guidelines, public venues must suspend activities and move patrons to designated safety areas when alerts are issued. By hosting events in a shelter from the outset, the society sidesteps that interruption entirely. Garcia frames it in broader terms. For many Kyiv residents, the calculus of daily life now involves constant negotiation between normal activity and the realities of an active war. The cinema society, in his telling, comes down firmly on the side of continuity. “We are experiencing great art together,” he said. Attendance has been consistent enough to sustain the programming, and the twice-yearly excursions outside the city have become a secondary social anchor for regulars. Two members of the Kyiv Cinema Society hug (Photo by Kyiv Cinema Society) Garcia believes the war has created unusual social cohesion among Kyiv residents, a closeness he sees reflected in how people engage with each other at screenings. “I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve got this magical little community,” he said. The next screening is already on the calendar. The shelter will fill. The lights will go down. The film, whatever the sirens say, will play to the end.