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Self-Preserving Nudity film image; woman in front of a microphone

Self-Preserving Nudity

Я не зникаю

VIFF Short Forum

Canadian Premiere

After being killed by a Russian missile strike, a Ukrainian woman finds herself caught between life and death in the Irish countryside.

Director
Featuring

Nelly Shylova, Richie Corcoran, Tommy Gaynor

Credits
Country of Origin

Ireland/Ukraine

Year

2025

Language

In English and Ukrainian with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+
7 min
Documentary Experimental & Avant Garde Human Rights & Social Justice Shorts Women Directors

Credits & Director

Producer

Joe Smith

Screenwriter

Nelly Shylova

Cinematography

Joe Smith, Nelly Shylova

Editor

Nelly Shylova

Original Music

Volodymyr Didenko

Nelly Shylova headshot

Nelly Shylova

Nelly Shylova, born 1990 in Yalta, Ukraine, is a filmmaker, photographer, and multidisciplinary artist based in Ireland. She studies film and photography at the Gorey School of Art (County Wexford, Ireland), and her artistic practice explores themes of forced migration, postcolonial trauma, gender inequality, and bodily memory, connecting personal experience with collective history. Shylova’s debut short film, Self-Preserving Nudity (2026), is a poetic reflection on exile, loss, and survival that blurs the boundary between documentary and fiction.

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