Ukrainian Works-in-Progress, from Odessa premiere in Karlovy Vary – The Hollywood Reporter

In a typical year, fans of Eastern European films, after enjoying the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in early July, would jump on a two-hour flight to Odesa, Ukraine for the Odesa International Film Festival, the no. 1 annual event for Ukrainian films. .

2022 is obviously far from typical. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 has made the IOFF unsustainable this year, but festivals across the region are showing cross-border solidarity with Ukrainian filmmakers and the country’s plagued local industry. The PriFest in Kosovo (July 26-31) has agreed to collaborate with the OVF on a series of special screenings of feature and short films by Ukrainian debut directors, and Poland’s Warsaw Film Festival will take over the screening of the entire competition program . at his event, which runs October 14-23.

In Karlovy Vary, meanwhile, the festival is dedicating part of its operating program to showing Ukrainian feature films in progress, IOFF works in progress, seeking funding or sales assistance to get over the line .

Eight full-length film projects, all in the final stages of shooting or in post-production, and all produced in Ukraine or in co-production with Ukraine, will be introduced to potential partners at the KVIFF’s OAF Works in Progress program on 5 July. The purpose of the OAFF WIP division is to promote Ukrainian theater to international distributors and production partners.

“We thought about how we could help our filmmakers and the film industry in Ukraine and it feels like the right way for us,” says Karlovy Vary’s executive director, Krystof Mucha. “We not only wanted to make a gesture, but to find a way to really support Ukrainian filmmakers in a concrete way.

The 2022 election seems to have something for everyone:

Steel Companyby Yuliia Hontaruk, in search of gap production financing, as well as a world sales agent and international festival premieres, is a drama ripped from the headlines about three veterans of the 2014 war in eastern Ukraine who were traumatized again after the Russian invasion of 2022 .

Denys Tarasov’s debut as a director Diagnosis: Disagreementwishing to close a $ 67,000 (€ 64,000) budget gap to complete post-production is a psycho-political drama focused in 1977 on the singer in a rock band accused and institutionalized against anti-Soviet propaganda only to discover the KGB is using the mental hospital as a front to impose psychiatric treatment on political undesirables.

Pavlo Ostrikov, who was short 2018 Vypusk ’97 has been nominated for a European Film Award, presents his second-year film You are the universe, a science fiction comedy about a space truck driver transporting radioactive waste on the other side of Jupiter, which is a witness to the earth exploding, leaving him the last man in the universe. But not the last person: A French woman living at a science station near Saturn offers hope for human contact.

The Glass Housethe third feature of blindfold Director Taras Dron, who is looking for pre-sales and an international sales agent, is a Ukrainian-Romanian drama about a mother who, after her young daughter disappears with her older boyfriend, begins to suspect that her daughter may be involved in drug trafficking.

Simon Mozgovyi Crisis day, a co-production with Northern Macedonia, is a high-concept drama about a traditional healer who mysteriously survives a nuclear explosion but completely loses her memory. A young doctor tries to help, but the memories that are recovered become unbearable and bring the woman closer to death. The project is seeking funding for editing, audio mix, color grading, music and VFX, as well as for an international sales agent.

Anna Buryachkova’s debut as a director When we were 15seeking additional post-production funding, an international sales agent and festival beds, is a personal drama about a young girl struggling with her sexuality and past abuse while trying to find her place in the adult world.

demonof director Natalka Vorozhbyt, whose Bad roads was Ukraine’s official Oscar entry this year, draws inspiration from the writings of the Russian master of the grotesque Nikolai Gogol in his story of a homeless man from Russia who befriends a Ukrainian woman to survive the winter, only to find out more to get than he bargained for. . The project is looking for additional funding to finish shooting, as well as post-production support.

Directed by Tonia Noyabrova (Hero of my time) seeks after-production financing to complete the color correction and sound mix Do you love me?a coming-of-age story of a 16-year-old girl in 1990s Soviet Ukraine, whose personal development reflects that of her soon-to-be-independent country.

The best Works in Progress project, as judged by an international industry jury, will receive a prize of $ 10,500 (€ 10,000) from Prague’s Barrandov Studios.