Ukrainian war drama film Butterfly Vision released

Today, on 6 April, the war drama Butterfly Vision directed by Maksym Nakonechnyi will be released in wide Ukrainian distribution. Its world premiere took place at last year's Cannes Film Festival.

Nakonechnyi's debut full-length film tells the story of Lilia, an air reconnaissance officer, with the alias Metelyk (Butterfly), who is taken prisoner by the Russians after a serious injury, and then returns to her family as a result of a Prisoner of War exchange. However, it turns out to be too difficult to return to the previous life after fighting in the war, and especially after the horrors of captivity.

Quote from Nakonechnyi: "To offer the audience a reflection that, despite all the difficulty of our current situation, still offers some exits and options. Shows the story of a person who survived and managed to preserve her own vision of her life."

Photo: Arthouse Traffic

The events of Butterfly Vision take place in 2017 – before the Russian full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, but after the start of the war in 2014. Nakonechnyi noted that his film gives a clear understanding that the war unleashed in Ukraine by the Russian Federation has been going on for nine years.

"There are many scenes about this in the film, actually. They indicate that even between different members of society, there was a giant gulf, especially between those who did not notice this war and those who were involved in this war. And this had its consequences, which led to the fact that for someone a full-scale invasion became a surprise, and for someone a natural development of events," the film director said.

Maksym Nakonechnyi in the centre

Photo: Arthouse Traffic

The author of the script, together with Nakonechnyi, was Iryna Tsilyk (The Earth Is Blue as an Orange, Felix and Me), a writer, director, and Sundance prize winner. Another director can be seen on screen – Natalka Vorozhbyt played one of the key roles in Butterfly Vision.

In addition to her, volunteers Myroslav Hai, Roman Sinitsyn, the founder of the Ukrainian Women Veteran Movement, Kateryna Pryimak, and other military personnel starred in the film. Professional actors Rita Burkovska and Liubomyr Valivots were entrusted to play the two main roles of Lilia, an air reconnaissance officer, and her husband Tokha.

"For the main roles, in which the depth of the character and the emotional amplitude were huge, I still tried to take professional actors or at least people from the workshop, to share with them the responsibility for their psychophysical apparatus so that the person was also minimally trained to take themself apart, and then to pull themself together," Nakonechnyi explained his choice.

The world premiere of the drama film Butterfly Vision took place in the Special View competition program of the Cannes Film Festival 2022. At the Odesa Film Festival, which took place as part of the Warsaw Film Festival last year, the film won the Best Ukrainian Feature Film award. The Ukrainian premiere of the film took place at the sixth Kyiv Week of Critics.

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