In the Ukrainian animated docudrama project Red Zone, pitched last week at EFM, audiences will experience everything that director Iryna Tsylik sees, feels and hears during one day of war. Husband Artem is serving on the front with the Ukrainian Army, so it is just Tsylik and her teenage son Andrii who must navigate the horrors of life during wartime, while at the same time doing all the stuff that constitutes day-to-day life. “But that’s the way life is in wartime,” she says. “Shelling, sheltering, and unreliable communications are just as much a part of life as morning coffee and meeting up with friends.”
Throughout it all, Tsylik returns to the poems that she has composed in past years, and looks for inspiration in the folk she meets in her daily life, as well as the things they say. “The random people she runs into are helpful, whether it is the thoughtful barista, a cantankerous taxi driver, the guy with red hair, or the woman in the green dress with her dog (it’s a sad story). She has a few lines for all of them: always sombre, often tinged with unexpected humour,” Tsylik underlines.
The expected release date for the film will be some time in 2028, with 13% of the budget in place, producer Darya Bassel (Moon Man) confirms to Business Doc Europe. “So far the project has been supported by Creative Europe MEDIA, European Solidarity Fund for Ukrainian Filmmakers, Luxembourg Film Fund, IDFA Bertha Fund, Breton fund, Bretagne Cinéma, Eurimages (Development Award), Chicken & Egg Pictures, Women Make Movies, International Media Support, Documenting Ukraine (IWM) and CICLIC (award in Annecy),” she adds.
Production will take place in Luxembourg, France, and Ukraine, with a_BAHN (Lux) and Vivement Lundi! (France) on board as co-pro partners. “The development budget is secured and all co-producers are applying for production financing this year,” Bassel adds. Sales are handled by Cinephil.
“Iryna and I have known each other for several years, sharing common friends and memories of her poetry readings in Kyiv over a decade ago,” Bassel stresses of her director. “A few months before the full-scale invasion, Iryna proposed a documentary essay about a woman navigating insecurity and uncertainty during the war. I was drawn to the tenderness and universal themes of her story, which resonated with my own experiences.”
She further underlines Tsylik’s qualities. “She’s a brilliant storyteller and frequently collaborates with other Ukrainian filmmakers as a script co-author or script consultant. One of her recent works in this capacity is Butterfly Vision, directed by Maksym Nakonechnyi, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard competition at Cannes in 2022. Being both a filmmaker and a famous poet, she constantly travels with public readings, gathering full halls not only in Ukraine but also in Europe and the US. Her diverse experiences and deep poetic sense of life allow her to create a story that will touch people’s hearts all over the world.”
“Over two years, the film’s narrative evolved, shaped by the challenges of the full-scale invasion and our search for words to express our new reality. Central to the story remains a woman living in a world that is both disintegrating and reconstructing,” Bassel adds.
Tsylik herself has published a statement of intent for the film. “After 11 years of war, even the most abnormal things start to seem normal. Living with the threat of rocket fire and collapsed buildings is never normal for most people, unless they happen to live in a warzone … unless they happen to live in Ukraine. All too often, people believe that they would just give up rather than put up with a steady stream of blackouts and rocket attacks, if they checked the names of casualties obsessively for anyone they knew, if they meet more friends at funerals than at the neighbourhood coffee shop,” she writes.
“But they (and by “they” I mean “we”) don’t give up because they can’t, because getting on with life unfazed is the most powerful weapon we have to throw in the face of our attackers. Our resilience is our resistance. I hope to show that in this film.”
“Men and women, who are not at the front, attend the theatre and the cinema, sip wine (or take antidepressants), and find ways to cope,” Tsylik continues. “We volunteer and raise funds for the war effort, get married, and have babies. We bustle our children off to school and worry about how the chaos is affecting them. We’ve mastered survival in an uncertain landscape. Now we have to share what we learned with the next generation. How do we do all of that and more? That’s what I hope to show in this film, Life does go on, after all, even if an inordinate number or friends and loved ones have been taken from us in their prime.”
“I chose an animated format for this film because, I believe, it can address even the most intimate and painful experiences safely but accurately. And of course, animation pairs beautifully with my personal art form, poetry. Unlike a more traditional documentary, these two art forms can express the absurdities of my mundane life (which is really anything but mundane), with just the right amount of humour and a hint of magic,” Tsylik ends.
