The film “The Fifth Therapy” is dedicated to the Odessa poet, actor and public figure Stas Dombrovsky. He wrote the script for this film and played the main role in it.
In his youth, he began using drugs. At the age of 17, he learned that he had HIV. This news caused him to start using drugs even more, which ruined his life. Soon he started stealing and ended up in prison. There he was diagnosed with HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis. In this regard, Stas was transferred to a special ward, which is called “fifth therapy”. Hopelessly ill patients were taken to it. Soon after this, Dombrowski was released from the hospital for health reasons a year and a half ahead of schedule. After this, the story of his recovery and repeated attempts to quit drugs began.
The film’s script was based on Dombrowski’s Facebook posts. “On a social network I talked about my past. I didn’t care what others thought about me. The main thing is that at that moment I already understood a lot about myself. For example, I got up in the morning, and I had a desire to use drugs or go get money the old way (steal). But instead I sat down and wrote out something from my past life. And after I published this, I could calmly continue the day and went to work: I stood on the street like a living sculpture, attended cutting and sewing courses, did some theatrical projects… In a word, I poured out my withdrawal symptoms on Facebook and moved on,” Dombrowski said in an interview.
“The Fifth Therapy” received prizes at film festivals in Odessa and Mar del Plata (Argentina), and also participated in the film festival program in Cottbus (Germany).
Slogan of the film: Fall to the very bottom in order to push off from it.
Director: Alisa Pavlovskaya
Producer: Valery Kalmykov
Scriptwriter: Stas Dombrovsky
Starring: Stas Dombrovsky, Victor Brevis, Alina Putishina, Sonya Kulagina
Operator: Maria Perkunova