On March 12, the tape “Toloka” will be released. It was filmed by the director Mykhailo Ilyenko based on the ballad “In that Kateryna…”, and its plot covers 400 years of Ukrainian history.
Mykhailo Illenko is the director, screenwriter and co-producer of the film: “Our film is a four-hundred-year journey of Kateryna’s hut through the expanses of risky farming under conditions incompatible with life, in search of the secret of the toloka. Toloka has many secrets. Toloka is not only a construction process. This is a strategic resource for the existence of Ukraine, even when it was not yet called Ukraine.”
The romantic ballad “Toloka” was created by the “Illenko Film” company with the support of the State Agency of Ukraine for Cinema.
The picture was produced by Mykhailo Illenko, Pylyp Illenko, Marianna Novikova, Andriy Rizol, Maksym Asadchiy, Oleg Shcherbina, Yulia Chernyavska and Vitaly Sheremetyev.
On the eve of the release, the film team announced a joint project with the “Return Alive” fund, under the terms of which seven hryvnias from each ticket to “Toloka” will be transferred to the fund and directed to help the army.
The idea of creating a film about the toloka phenomenon, which no one had addressed before, came to Mykhailo Illienko 53 years ago: after a conversation with his brother, the famous director Yuriy Illienko. The tape was based on 66 lines of Shevchenko’s ballad “At that Kateryna’s…”, and the story was supplemented with memories from the childhood of the legendary actor Ivan Mykolaichuk. The silhouettes of the actors began to grow to unexpected proportions after Mykhailo Illienko’s meetings with ATO volunteers, to which the director went during 2014-2016, showing fragments of the unfinished “Toloka” together with the film “ToiHtoProiShovKrizzVogon”.
According to the director’s plan, the first viewers of “Toloka” were military personnel and civilians in the area of the Joint Forces Operation (UFO). The pre-premiere tour of the painting in the OOS zone took place in the fall of 2019, with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Fund. Mykhailo Illenko and the actors of the film visited more than twenty cities and towns of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Synopsis: Taras Shevchenko has a ballad about how three Cossacks fell in love with Kateryna. Kateryna entrusted her choice to fate: she promised to become the wife of the one who frees her brother from captivity. Two of the three Cossacks died trying to fulfill the terms of the contract, the third managed to save her brother, but Kateryna’s brother turned out not to be her brother, but her lover… Kateryna will have to wait for her “brother” in the plot of the film for more than a century, without aging and without losing hope. This story, like a parable, flies through the history of Ukraine, reproduces its dramatic and heroic episodes. Every test destroys Kateryna’s house. But she stubbornly, like many generations of Ukrainians, raises it from the ruins again and again.
The age of the Ukrainian house is short – from war to war. If it weren’t for the toloka, there would be nowhere to meet your beloved. Thanks to the toloka, no house in Ukraine was ever “on the edge”, always in the center of the community.
The leitmotif of the film was the author’s version of the Ukrainian folk song “Black eyes, like a field” (interpreted by Mykhailo Ilyenko – “Ukrainian folk Kamasutra”). The song in the film was performed by famous musicians, actors, and volunteers. The sound producer of the track is Serhii Fomenko (“Foma”).
The film project “Toloka” became one of the winners of the 3rd competitive selection of State Cinema. As a result of additional financing, the picture received state financial support in the amount of almost 28.4 million hryvnias, which is 98% of the total cost of production.
Mykhailo Illenko is a Ukrainian film director, screenwriter, actor, academician of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, Honored Artist of Ukraine, Laureate of the Oleksandr Dovzhenko State Prize of Ukraine (2007). Since 1997, the organizer of the film festival “Open Night”. Since 1994, he has been the head of the feature film directing course at the Institute of Screen Arts of the Ivan Karpenko-Kary Kyiv National University of Theater, Cinema and Television. From 2002 to 2003, he was the dean of the film faculty of the Ivan Karpenko-Kary Kyiv National University of Theater, Cinema and Television. Member of the National Union of Cinematographers of Ukraine. Mykhailo Illenko became the first chairman of the board of the Ukrainian Film Academy. Ilyenka’s most famous directorial works: “Fuzhou”, “The Seventh Route”, “Who Walked Through the Fire” and others.
About the film
Company: “Illenko Film”
Running time: 116 min.
Genre: Romantic Ballad
Director: Mykhailo Illenko
Author of the script: Mykhailo Illenko
Operator: Oleksandr Kryshtalovych
Composer: Roman Vishnevsky
Production designer: Roman Adamovych, Mykola Kishchuk
Producers: Mykhailo Illenko, Pylyp Illenko, Marianna Novikova, Andriy Rizol, Maksym Asadchy, Oleg Shcherbina, Yulia Chernyavska and Vitaly Sheremetyev
Sound director: Artem Mostovy
Starring: Ivanna Illenko, Dmytro Linartovych, Bohdan Benyuk, Oleg Primogenov, Serhii Romanyuk, Myroslav Gai, Dmytro Rybalevskyi, Vasyl Kuharskyi, Kostyantyn Voytenko, Tetyana Nagirnyak, Yevgenia Konyukh, and others.
Cameo roles in the film were performed by the stars of Ukrainian cinema, music and television: Akhtem Seitablaev, Oleg Skrypka, Serhii “Foma” Fomenko, Oleg “Fagot” Mykhailiuta, Ivan Lenyo, Galya and Lesya Telniuk, Taras Kompanichenko, Dmytro and Vitaly Kapranovy, Anna Zakletska, Roman Kolyada and others.