The directors frame this as essential cultural preservation—a way to give young Ukrainians 'access to an authentic history, rather than censored narratives or concepts shaped decades ago under the influence of Russian mythmaking.' It's positioned as a gift to future generations who deserve unfiltered truth about their nation's defining moments.
Director Roman Liubyi admits there's still 'no proper film' he can show his own daughter about Maidan—a striking confession about the gap in Ukraine's visual history. The documentary drops at a critical moment, just months before the 12th anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity begins, making this release feel less like coincidence and more like calculated cultural ammunition.
World premieres June 11, 2026 in Sheffield DocFest's international competition lineup. Directors Roman Liubyi (War Note) and Volodymyr Tykhyy (One Day in Ukraine) built the film through Babylon '13 production house with Suspilne Ukraine and Germany's Trimafilm as co-producers. The central narrative follows a wounded soldier time-traveling into December 2013 Kyiv searching for Maksym, nicknamed Dali—a young poet who dies fighting Russia.
This isn't just another war documentary—it's an emotional gut-punch disguised as history. When filmmakers admit they have 'no proper film' to show their children about their own revolution, you know the silence has been deafening.
Time Machine Maidan doesn't want your detachment—it wants your complicity. The new documentary from directors Roman Liubyi and Volodymyr Tykhyy drops its exclusive trailer exclusively with THR today, and it's a brutal, beautiful thing: a film that refuses to let audiences sit safely behind a steady camera. The project, world premiering June 11 at Sheffield DocFest in the international competition lineup, constructs a narrative bridge between two defining Ukrainian moments separated by over a decade.
On one side: the Maidan Revolution, also called the Revolution of Dignity, that erupted in late 2013 when then-president Viktor Yanukovych abandoned EU membership for Russian ties, culminating in his ouster by February 2014. On the other: today's grinding war since Russia's full-scale invasion. The mechanism holding it together is hauntingly simple yet devastatingly effective.
A wounded soldier drifts in a liminal state of consciousness and time-travels backward into frozen December 2013 Kyiv. There he searches for Maksym, known as Dali—a young poet who will grow into a warrior and die fighting Russia. The traveler wants to warn him.
To save him. But the film's press notes deliver the painful truth without flinching: 'Freedom is not the power to rewrite fate, but the courage to choose it.' The documentary's visceral first-person approach places viewers directly inside both physical and emotional turmoil—no comfortable distance offered, no escape hatch provided. Director Liubyi admits in a statement he felt compelled to create something for the 10th anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity because 'there is still no proper film I can show my daughter about Maidan.' For his generation, he explains, 'Maidan was like a club.
All the people I was interested in were there... It was our youth. It's not just a boring page from a history textbook.' Co-director Tykhyy draws an explicit line connecting past resistance to present survival: 'What we witnessed during the first months of Ukraine's defense, particularly in the battles for the outskirts of Kyiv, was in many ways a direct continuation of the Maidan initiative—horizontal networks, self-organization, and construction of fortifications by ordinary citizens with their own hands.' He emphasizes young Ukrainians now need 'access to an authentic history' untainted by Russian mythmaking. Produced by Babylon '13 in collaboration with Suspilne Ukraine and Germany's Trimafilm, with cinematography by Yuriy Gruzinov, Time Machine Maidan weaves archival footage and on-location images into something between documentary and fever dream.
