6 April – movie “Alive” (1 h 33 min; 2016; Ukraine) by Taras Khymych in Ukrain­ian with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles. The movie tells the sto­ry of Ukrain­ian Patri­ot­ic Army that was fight­ing for Ukrain­ian inde­pen­dence dur­ing and after the WW II.

Based on real events that took place in the 1950s, the movie tells a sto­ry of a young Ukrain­ian girl who finds her­self in the Ukrain­ian Insur­gent Army camp while try­ing to evade per­se­cu­tion from the Sovi­et sys­tem. A cou­ple of years before her death, Anna Popovych, on whose biog­ra­phy the movie is based, grant­ed her per­mis­sion to Taras Khymych to pro­duce a screen ver­sion of her life’s events. Film­ing took place in Gor­gany, a well-known moun­tain range in West­ern Ukraine, where Popovych’s real-life dra­ma unfold­ed some 60 years ago.

In the Carpathi­an Moun­tains a girl by the name of Anna often expe­ri­ences super­nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na. After find­ing her­self at the very cen­tre of Ukrain­ian insur­gents’ strug­gle against pre­vail­ing forces of the Sovi­et Empire, a voice that she hears and dreams that she sees not only warn Anna of the loom­ing dan­ger but also change the fate of those that sur­round her.

The film was pre­sent­ed at Ukrain­ian pavil­ion of the 69th Film Mar­ket Cannes Film Fes­ti­val.

Trail­er: http://www.zhyvamovie.com/en/