BBFF22: Klondike

Synopsis

Ukraine’s Official Entry For Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards.

2022 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL / Directing Award Winner / World Dramatic Competition

72.Berlin Film Festival /Ecumenical Jury Prize Winner / Audience Award 2nd Place

The story of a family that from July 17-19 2014 finds itself at the center of MH-17 air crash catastrophe near the village of Hrabove in the Donetsk Oblast of Ukraine.

Expectant parents Irka and Tolik live in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine near the Russian border, disputed territory in the early days of the Donbas war. Their nervous anticipation of their first child’s birth is violently disrupted as the vicinal crash of flight MH17 elevates the forbidding tension enveloping their village. The looming wreckage of the downed airliner and an incoming parade of mourners emphasize the surreal trauma of the moment.

As Tolik’s separatist friends expect him to join their efforts, Irka’s brother is enraged by suspicions that the couple has betrayed Ukraine. Irka refuses to be evacuated even as the village gets captured by armed forces, and she tries to make peace between her husband and brother by asking them to repair their bombed house.

Klondike gives a voice to women standing up to violence and militarism and is an important addition to the context of the war currently ravaging the region.

Screens with short films – see bbff.com.au for more details