Oksana Ivantsiv

Oksana Ivantsiv (* 1987, Berezhany, Ukraine) is a documentary film producer, human rights defender, and columnist. In 2020 Oksana founded Arts&Rights NGO which works for democracy development and human rights with the help of multidisciplinary projects that combine documentary, analytics, and impact campaigns. Oksana is interested in issues of national and collective memory, war crimes, and gender equality.

Oksana began her work in documentaries as an executive producer of the »Invisible Battalion« documentary (dir. Iryna Tsylyk, Alina Gorlova, Svitlana Lischynska; Ukraine 2017), which raised the question of gender equality in the Ukrainian army and was part of a broad advocacy campaign that changed post-Soviet legislation to give women access to combatant positions. Later in 2018, Oksana became an executive producer of the »No Obvious Signs« documentary (dir. Alina Gorlova; Ukraine 2018) which raised the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as an invisible wound of war. The film was received many awards at international film festivals, and according to Dovzhenko Center is one of the hundred best films in the history of Ukrainian cinema.

In 2021, Oksana founded a project »What Does It Mean to Remember« that explores the collective memory of the Russian–Ukrainian war. The project received the Red Dot: Best of the Best award for »Best Identity«, silver for »External Communication«, and bronze for »Design« by the Art Directors Club of Europe. In 2022, Oksana was artist-in-residence at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, where she is working on the issue of rape during the military conflict. The project »Women Occupied« tells the stories of women from different countries, who were raped when their homelands were occupied by enemy armies.