fiction feature film
In the biggest Prison of Nations, the main thing is to make even the worst crime happy and confusing. Black is called white, darkness is called light, imprisonment is called liberation. If you put your effort in, you can frighten and convince everyone. Or at least to believe that you are doing something necessary, good, socialist. Standing up to the neck in someone else's blood, the main thing is to smile blissfully and grow a mustache.
Irena was unlucky to have a serious competitor. Her birthday coincided with the anniversary of the occupation/'liberation' of the western Ukraine by the Soviet Union in 1939-41. Despite a wide range of events: protests, hanging banners "the year of happiness" and a portrait of the big mustached Father who organized the great victories, Irena's friends still decide to come to her place, where the truth can still be told and heard. The Poet, the Photographer and the Priest go to greet her in the editorial office, but there is a nuance: they are followed by a Moustached Man who calls himself simply: Friend. This "Friend" turns the celebration into the biggest horror in Irena's life: a trip to a sanatorium, or rather prison. Prison “Liberation”!
Nonsense? Not for a Friend. He sees that Irena is a bearer of Ukrainian traditions, and he also sees... Great Soviet hallucinations from the lemon salad Irena has made. So a "citrine case" is launched against her.
Irena only wants her own life back, her home, friends, husband, son, from whom she has been so fraternally liberated.
In her new leather shoes she stands ankle-deep in ice-cold water, waiting for the day when she can be told what is going on.
Despite the events that every Ukrainian and the whole world is experiencing for the last year, we do not remember well what happened 100 years ago. It was then that the methodology for the consistent destruction of Ukrainian ethnicity was written.
PROJECT TEAM
IRYNA HROMOZDA, scripwriter
Education:
Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Theatre, Cinema and Television University, major: Film and TV Directing, workshop of Mykola Merzlykin in 2010
Author's works:
Fool (2010), short film, screenwriter and director
- Awarded for Best Film Essay, Golden Eye Film Festival, Georgia, 2010
- Awarded for Original Spatial Solution, Kinolev Film Festival, Ukraine, 2010
At the Service of the Regime. Riefenstahl, documentary film, screenwriter and director
Aired on Channel 5 on April 2, 2011
Girl with Matches (2009), short film, 35 mm
Wall (2008), short film, 35 mm
What Is Your Name? Documentary, screenwriter and director, commissioned by UNICEF
Directed titles:
Picnic (2021), TV series, 8 episodes
Mother's Love (2020), TV series, 4 episodes
Loyal Friend (2020), TV series, 4 episodes
Hide and Seek (2019), TV series, 8 episodes
Believe Me (2018), TV series, 4 episodes
What Is Your Name? (2017), documentary film, a joint project of UNICEF and FILM.UA
Dad Dan (2016), TV series, 16 episodes
Miracle on Schedule (2015), TV series, 4 episodes
Greek Woman (2014), TV series, 60 episodes
OLENA LAVRENYUK, producer
Higher education: International Economic Relations, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. She completed an internship abroad. Second education: Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Theatre, Cinema and Television University. Olena’s first production project is a TV series Coffee with Cardamom, a film adaptation of Natalia Hurnytska's novel Coffee Melody in Cardamom Tone. This is a 10-episode costume historical drama that tells about a passionate love story of a married Polish nobleman and a young Ukrainian girl.
The series was partially funded by the Ukrainian State Film Agency and commissioned by STB, a national TV channel. The series aired on STB in December 2021. Olena is actively engaged in production and educational activities in Ukraine and abroad. Twice, she initiated and produced Kyiv workshops of Ivana Chubbuck, a Hollywood acting coach, owner of a drama school in Los Angeles and many representative offices around the world. In addition to her production activities, Olena acts in films and plays in theater productions.