Olesya Ostrovskaya

Hanging out with friends, smoking a lot, spinning bottles and kissing, making mistakes, playing, refusing to accept, dreaming with open eyes - life as a teenager can be overwhelmingly beautiful and difficult at the same time. In her debut, the Ukrainian director composes a deeply emotional and multi-layered portrait of a generation whilst seamlessly flowing between the fictional and the documental.

Seventeen-year-old Yasha is rebelling against authority. But in the USSR of 1990, some opposing forces are more dangerous than others. Determined not to give in, Yasha’s need for self-expression will propel him to the precipice of irreparable harm.

July 23, 2018. An important date for ex-FEMEN leader Oxana Chatchko - the opening of her exhibition of blasphemous icons. So begins a day of wandering across Paris. Amidst encounters with lovers and an art critic, and an appointment to confirm her political refugee status, memories of her past as a feminist activist, and the traumas and betrayals suffered during her fight, resurface. Can she reawaken her desire to live?

When the war in Ukraine breaks out, five women representing various generations and attitudes engage in a desperate fight to save themselves and their loved ones. Thrown together by life, they are protagonists in an uplifting story about life, courage, sacrifice and the power of human spirit.

Irina, a small-town nurse, has a heart defect. According to the doctors' prognosis, her heart has not much time left to beat, and there is no one to take care of her six-year-old daughter Anna. Irina feverishly tries to find a way out and she gets the idea that Anya could be brought up by her grandfather - the father of the young man who left Irina pregnant. All she knows about her daughter's grandfather, Igor Vasilyevich Kutepov, is that he is a rather successful businessman and 63 years old.

Alex, an experienced surgeon, makes a mistake in the diagnosis of his seven-year-old godson. The boy dies on the operating table. Stunned, the man tenders his resignation. One autumn morning he is sitting on the riverbank in a favourite place where he used to fish with his godson. Suddenly he notices the figure of a shapely semi-naked girl emerging from the fog. She is shivering with cold. Alex spontaneously offers his help, and thus becomes part of an incredible adventure story.

For several months now, in a residential area of the city, residents of a house have been waking up at 5am to the sound of a rooster crowing on Viktor and Anna's balcony. At breakfast, the wife gives her husband an ultimatum: he must remove the rooster and finish the renovations by her anniversary.

Fired just before a crucial business trip, Katya is forced to pretend she's her boss's wife. Sharing one room with the man she can't stand, their fake marriage begins to feel unexpectedly real.

Valeria works at an art gallery and is raising her son, Sam, alone. One day, near the gallery, Sam is hit by a car. The driver was the eldest son of Valeria’s boss, who dies in the accident. Although Sam initially appears unharmed, he is diagnosed with heart failure. Seeking financial assistance, Valeria turns to her boss, who blames Sam for his son’s death and begins to blackmail Valeria.