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The Architects of Hope: The First Steps in Rebuilding Ukraine.

Now selected for its first 34 festivals, including 5 awards, and 4 upcoming nominations! Filmed in English and showing talented Ukrainians pulling together and drawing on their deep artistic & technical skills to make a difference. As Russia continues to destroy Ukrainian cities, Ukraine’s leading architects are already building upwards & advanced new buildings are rising again as symbols of hope. This film follows 5 leading Ukrainian architects as they independently spearhead a range of crucial war-related projects.

Their projects are the continuation of a powerful cultural revolution that has been unfolding for three decades – as Ukraine's modern architects have been steadily transforming Ukraine's towns & cities with people-focused architecture, and each new project fuels the ongoing transformation of society.

The film also follows students from the Kharkiv School of architecture as they start on their journey & prepare for their future in rebuilding Ukraine. The work of these architects underscores the vital role of having a strong vision – because for them, hope is not merely wishful thinking. Instead, Ukraine’s architects reveal that hope is the essential step in first imagining the future, before then striving forwards to create that better world you want to live in.

  • Paul Thomas
    Director
    AMERICAN: The Bill Hicks Story
  • Steve Cole
    Producer
    Werner Herzog: Beyond Reason
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Genres:
    War, architecture, current affairs, design
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 14 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    January 31, 2024
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    Ukraine
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    4k
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2:35
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Paul Thomas

Paul Thomas is a Grieson Nominated, multi-award winning director, best known for American: The Bill Hicks Story – the UK's 2nd highest grossing theatrical documentary in 2010. After training as an architect, Paul worked in live TV before moving to BBC Comedy, working with Sacha Baron Cohen, Katherine Tate, Sharon Horgan, and then moving via factual entertainment into longer form feature documentary work.

Other work includes Shadows of Sofia, 2018, Prince William Uncovered, 2003 Big Brother's Little Wedding, 2003 Series Director–C4 Animation Season, 2000, 2001. The Architecture Show, Discovery 1998. AMERICAN: The Bill Hicks Story was Grierson & Cinema Eye nominated and was also nominated for Best Documentary at the International Press Academy Satellite Awards. The film won Best Documentary awards at Dallas Film Festival, LA Film Festival, Little Rock, & Biografilm, Italy.

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Director Statement

I originally trained as an architect before moving to a career in television & film, and previously made a series about modern architecture for The Discovery Channel.

Shortly after the war broke out in Ukraine, the architect Norman Foster announced that an international team of architects would help rebuild Ukraine, and my first thought was, 'But what about Ukraine's own architects? Who are they? And what will their place be in this?'

So I began to research, and quickly found an impressive array of highly creative architects, pulling off astounding and beautiful modern projects on what I knew would be far smaller budgets than in the West. Several of these architects were already hard at work on ideas for reconstruction projects and so I contacted them and travelled to Kyiv in July 2022 to shoot the first interviews. As a former architect, I was able to quickly identify and select the country’s leading architects – a selection since born out by events – as 2 of the architects won separate national competitions during filming, and a 3rd has tenaciously secured substantial reconstruction funding for a new school in Kharkiv.

I had also previously worked for 2 years on a feature documentary in Bulgaria, uncovering corruption within the Bulgarian Government (Shadows of Sofia - on Amazon) and so I was also familiar with Russia's manipulative grip on the former soviet states and had a strong sense of the issues beneath the surface that Ukraine would be dealing with.

I then returned to Ukraine in Nov 22 and made several more trips through 2023.

My producer Steve Cole had also filmed in Kyiv in 2012 and has PD'd many arts programmes and was following developments closely when I invited him to come on board as co-producer, in an editorial role and an ever-useful second pair of eyes.