Pegah Ahangarani at the Film Festival in Paris.

First of all, in the 21^st Century we need festival diversity: in my perfect world, all of them should encourage the breadth and variety of views. Cinema is the most democratic art: it uses the most appropriate language for audiences and can be accessible almost everywhere because of the Internet. Film festivals can consolidate and maintain democracy, peace and freedom. 13 years ago Docudays UA was created in Ukraine as a festival to popularize and develop documentary film. Our festival content has contributed to an increase of critical thinking and created active citizenship in a post-Soviet country. For years we have been teaching our audience to talk about difficult topics, and yet the steady growth of viewers continues.