Ukraine / 2024 / 127 min / Ukrainian with English subtitles / Dark Comedy
In the wild steppes of southern Ukraine, a young nature researcher named Yura Is looking for an endangered species of groundhog but instead witnesses a crime. Eager to expose the truth, Yura takes his photo evidence to the local newspaper’s editorial office. However, he quickly realizes that nobody there cares about pursuing justice. While a big war is looming over the horizon, Yura’s naive worldview is splintering in a storm of fake news, rigged political elections, and mysterious cult rituals. On his quest, the hero is about to find out who he really is—an endangered species of a good man or just a loser?
DIRECTOR: A graduate of Kyiv National University of Theater, Cinema, and Television, Roman has directed short films, documentaries, music videos and the feature film Volcano (2018), which premiered at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, screened at more than 50 festivals worldwide (including FLIFF), and won 12 awards, including the Shevchenko National Prize, the highest state prize of Ukraine for works of culture and the arts.
Roman’s feature-length documentary Ukrainian Sheriffs won the Special Jury Prize at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2015, Grand Prix of the IDFF Docs against Gravity, and was selected as the Ukrainian submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. His second documentary, Dixie Land (2016), premiered at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in the USA and received a Golden Duke Award for Best Ukrainian Film at the Odesa International Film Festival.
Roman also works as an art director of the DocuDays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival and has been a member of the selection committee for the Ukrainian submissions to the Academy Awards since 2019.
DIRECTOR STATEMENT: For me, cinema is a way of exploring the world. I’ve always been fascinated by and drawn to the south of Ukraine, which is not so well-described in literature or film; it’s a sort of no man’s land between Crimea and mainland Ukraine.
I grew up there. I grew up in a family of journalists in the ’90s. The reality was quite grotesque and I grew up with it, witnessing how news could be created, invented. I always wanted to make a film about this news cycle in the Ukrainian provinces.
The Editorial Office is a metaphor, full of modern myths and obscurities, but it also shows real things that happened to real people. The people who made it and acted in it have a connection to the place and the past of southern Ukraine. They were all affected by the chaos before the war.
Many of the places we filmed no longer exist. They were destroyed, flooded, or burned down. The fates of many people in the film are unknown. Some left the country with their families; some turned out to be collaborators and fled to Russia. But most chose to stay and resist the invaders.
Contact: daryabassel@gmail.com
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