Klondike

In July 2014, many people still believed that the situation in the Donbas would soon calm down again. Irka, who is expecting a child, also stubbornly refuses to abandon her home, but she has no idea that her decision to defend her right to stay will come at great cost. Emotionally torn between her passively pro-Russian husband and her actively anti-separatist brother, she doesn’t begin to understand the laws of war until it is too late. The mastery with which Maryna Er Gorbach filmed her evocative drama based on true events was confirmed by a Best Director award at the Sundance festival. The filmmaker presents the story of a mother responsible for a future life through carefully composed shots in which each frame evokes the destructive force of war. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)