Redaktsiya

Young biologist Yura actually leads a quiet provincial life with his job at the Natural History Museum. He’s still living at home with his mother – if only her pompous admirer wouldn’t annoy him with his readings from “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”. In search of the marmot, a creature thought extinct on the Southern Ukrainian steppe, Yura is witness to arson. Trying to draw public attention to the injustice, he unexpectedly ends up on a sensationalist local news portal, and is drawn ever deeper into the absurd entanglements of a network that no one is really interested in unravelling.

Roman Bondarchuk’s long-awaited second feature is a playful media and political satire with shades of science fiction: ludicrous, bizarre, self-critical and subversive, without losing love and faith in its protagonists. Shot shortly before the Russian invasion and completed in the middle of the war, with almost no direct reference to the fighting and yet highly topical, it captures the fragile humanity at stake here. A monument to Kherson – wild periphery, central theatre of war and Bondarchuk’s home region. (Irina Bondas)

Roman Bondarchuk’s debut feature film Volcano (2018) premiered at Karlovy Vary and won 12 international awards, including Ukraine's Shevchenko National Prize. His documentary Ukranian Sheriffs (2015) received the Special Jury Prize at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and was Ukraine's submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. Dixie Land (2016) won the Golden Duke Award at Odesa International Film Festival. Bondarchuk serves as the Artistic Director for Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival.

Production Darya Bassel, Dar'ya Averchenko. Production company Moon Man (Kyiv, Ukraine). Director Roman Bondarchuk. Screenplay Alla Tyutyunnyk, Dar'ya Averchenko, Roman Bondarchuk. Cinematography Vadym Ilkov. Editing Viktor Onysko, Nikon Romanchenko. Music Anton Baibakov. Sound design Serhiy Stepansky. Sound Serhiy Stepansky. Production design Kirill Shuvalov. Costumes Sofia Doroshenko. Make-up Oksana Pidopryhora. Casting Tetiana Symon. Executive producer Vika Khomenko. Co-producer Tanja Georgieva-Waldhauer, Katarína Krnáčová, Dagmar Sedláčková. Co-production Elemag Pictures, Silverart, MasterFilm, South Films. With Dmytro Bahnenko, Zhanna Ozirna, Rymma Ziubina, Andrii Kyrylchuk, Oleksandr Shmal, Vasyl Kukharskyi, Maksym Kurochkin, Oleksandr Hannochenko, Serhii Ivanov, Serhiy Stepansky, Serhii Mykhailovskyi, Anastasia Kapshuchenko, Artem Karataiev, Joel Kenneth Rakos, Serhii Malyuga, Halyna Kobzar-Slobodiuk.

Films: 2014: Euromaidan. Rough Cut. 2015: Ukrainian Sheriffs (documentary). 2016: Dixie Land. 2018: Vulkan / Volcano. 2024: Redaktsiya / The Editorial Office.

Bonus Material