At the 68th Cannes Film Festival this year, only one full-length Ukrainian premiere is being shown – Captivity by Anatoly Mateshko.
The film does not compete for film forum awards, but is shown as part of the film market. Its events unfold over the course of one day. A chemistry teacher goes to the ATO zone to pick up his hostage sons. Having found himself in a group where they should have been, he eventually becomes an executioner himself, receiving the call sign “Chemist”.
The main roles in the film were played by Vladimir Goryansky, Ostap Stupka, Larisa Rusna, Dmitry Surzhikov and others. There are 12 characters in the film. The producer of the film is Alexander Itygilov. Filming took place in the Kyiv region.
According to the director, the entire filming period lasted only seven days. “Every actor knew what to do, all the actors got used to the role and literally did not leave it for weeks. For me, this was a very important directorial experiment and the actors really missed such work in Ukraine. For us it was a kind of creative laboratory,” says Anatoly Mateshko.
One of the main messages of the tape is that war takes away a person’s right not only to live, but also to die. The prisoner does not belong to himself at all. This is a story about those who, finding themselves in an extreme situation, sold their souls to the devil, and those who retained their humanity.
The film can be seen on wide screens in Ukraine in the fall. At the same time, the national premiere of the film, which has already been planned by the Molodist film festival, will take place.