Director Pavlo Ostrikov showed his debut film at the Toronto festival, one of the most prestigious in the world. He went to this for seven years, despite the pandemic and the war. Here is his (subjective) story

Pavlo Ostrikov did something that seemed impossible in the Ukrainian film industry: a debutant director made a film, the events of which take place in space. The plot of “U Are The Universe” looks like this: Earth dies in a nuclear disaster; the main character pilots a space "junker" to drop radioactive waste on one of Jupiterʼs moons. He has a food supply, a record collection and an on-board robot assistant. He is (almost) the last man in the universe. Ostrikov filmed his debut for seven years, despite everything — the disbelief of the producers, the politics of the Ukrainian State Cinema, the pandemic, a full-scale invasion and lack of money, and several times he lost hope of ever seeing the result. Babelʼs editor Glib Gusev spoke with Pavlo Ostrikov and recorded from his words how this film was created. The story of the work on the film turned out to be the story of how Ukrainian cinema has changed over the past ten years.

"I come from the small town of Krasyliv," says Pavlo Ostrikov into the microphone. He stands on the stage, in the hall in front of him are several dozen spectators. Itʼs stand-up night, heʼs one of the comedians.

Itʼs not the first time for Ostrikov on stage. He performed at student festivals, and every time it was a team effort, with costumes and props. He likes standup for its freedom. There is only you, your ideas and a microphone — do whatever it takes to make the audience laugh.

"I came up with an ideal test for a Kyivan," continues Ostrikov. "If you leave Metrograd where you wanted to, thatʼs it, youʼre from Kyiv!"

The hall laughs. Itʼs 2015, Ostrikov has been living in Kyiv for eight years. He has already shot his first short film. It brought him some fame, useful acquaintances and hopes for the future. He is full of optimism.

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Krasyliv is located in the Khmelnytskyi region, about a forty-minute drive from the regional center. 18 thousand people live in it. The city has a Catholic church from the end of the 19th century and a machine-building plant from the end of the 20th century. "I am glad that I was born and spent my childhood there," says Ostrikov. "I saw life without decorations."

He was born a year before Ukraine gained independence. His childhood was half rural, half urban: Pavloʼs grandmother and cousins lived in the village, where his parents sent him every summer. Mom worked as a crane operator at a machine-building plant, and when the plant fell into a whirlwind in the 1990s economicat crisis, she became a housewife. My father worked as a construction worker and was often absent — he traveled to earn money.

His parentsʼ professions are not very creative, but Pavlo saw creative beginnings in them. In his youth, his father wanted to become an animator and made plasticine models as a hobby. Many years later, Ostrikov will give the same hobby to the hero of his debut film "U Are The Universe". This is a tribute to his father.

Ostrikov himself did not know who he wanted to become, and was afraid of making a mistake. He graduated from school with a gold medal, and when the director said that he should go to law school, he chose this profession. He liked lawyers. He saw them in American films: how they make speeches, how they change destinies.

However, the world of Ukrainian jurisprudence turned out to be not at all the way he had imagined. Ostrikov understood this when he entered the law faculty of the National Aviation University (NAU) in Kyiv and after the first course went to practice in court. Corridors, offices, people in these corridors and offices made a depressing impression on him. His first order there was to take a package with "an informal thank-you" to another institution. Then Ostrikov was engaged in gluing stamps on registered letters.

Ostrikov realized that he had made a mistake. This was not his life. He dreamed of creating something new himself, and not of fixing what others had done according to numerous codes. Fortunately, NAU had a place for those who did not see themselves as either a lawyer or an engineer. Every year, it held the "Student Spring" competition.

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"Student Spring" became a breath of fresh air for Ostrikov. All NAU faculties gathered teams of students who wanted to try their hand at creativity. They made performances, created sketches, dance and song performances. Once a year, faculty teams competed on the stage of the NAU Culture and Arts Center. They performed in a huge hall for 1,500 spectators.

In the second year, Ostrikov staged the play "Cosmos" for the regular "Studentʼs Spring": he wrote the script and performed the main role. The play was a comedy, its jokes are already outdated, but the tie-in will appear many years later in the film "U Are The Universe": the Earth has died, and somewhere in the middle of the Solar System, the last person in the universe is wandering on a spaceship.

At about the same time, Ostrikov became seriously interested in cinema. He started with student video competitions within the framework of the same "Student Spring", and by the fourth year he had created his own studio that shot commercials. Over time, the studio began to win commercial tenders, filmed for the large Ukrainian companies — bank Aval and Kyivenergo.

The backbone of the studio was Ostrikov himself and two of his friends — Yevhen Golovanchuk and Yulia Tymoshenko. The boys mastered new specialties: Ostrikov took on graphic design, Golovanchuk — assembly and 3D modeling. Yulia became a studio producer: she handled documents and communicated with customers.

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In 2013, the studio team went to the Odesa International Film Festival — that was its fourth year. The team of producer Denys Ivanov was involved in OIFF: it assembled an impressive competition program and an international jury, arranged screenings of Oscar and Cannes laureates, held the opening ceremony at Odesa Opera House. The event team repaired the fountain in front of the Festival Palace, which had not worked since Soviet times. It organized the "Summer Film School", a film market and parties attended by industry leaders.

The festival revived Odesa. It quickly became the main cultural event of the city, and in the third year it overshadowed all Ukrainian cinematographic events, including the capitalʼs "Molodist" film festival. Ostrikov got to Odesa when the festival was at its peak. He could not believe that such a celebration of cinema is possible in Ukraine, that hundreds of thousands of viewers and hundreds of film critics from all over the world can come to the Ukrainian festival. In 2013, the OIFF specifically organized the short film competition and selected the works of Ukrainian directors for it. Ostrikov understood that he had to enter this competition.

Immediately after the festival, he came up with a short film. A couple of newlyweds are on their way from marriage registration in Irpin, Kyiv suburb, to a banquet in the capital. They stop for the bride to empty her bladder, and a "mystical" transformation takes place with her. Ostrikov deliberately wrote the script in such a way that it could be shot quickly and with a minimal budget. He spent 1,600 hryvnias on gas and renting a wedding dress.

Ostrikov didnʼt know how to edit a movie, so he shot with long shots, which are considered a show-off: for nine minutes of the film, he only had three editing clips. The main role was played by Oleksandra Mashlyatina, the future star of "Womenʼs Quarter". The short film was called “The Stop".

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"The Stop" was not included in the short-length program of the two main Ukrainian festivals — "Molodist" and OIFF. However, in 2014 it was taken by "Open Night" — a festival founded by a veteran of Ukrainian cinema, a member of the famous Illenko family, director Mykhailo Illenko.

The festival showed short films outdoors on the night of the last Sunday in June. Ostrikov watched part of the program and went home to sleep quite early, without waiting for the announcement of the winners. When he woke up, he saw dozens of missed calls from acquaintances and strangers. While he was sleeping, "The Stop" won two prizes, including the grand jury prize.

Among those missed was a call from producer Volodymyr Filippov. It turned out that he wants Ostrikov to shoot a feature film based on a short one. It seemed to Ostrikov that he was still sleeping and seeing a strange dream. It was hard for him to believe that he, self-taught, could so easily get the fate he dreamed of. A feature film means that you will be hired. And if you got hired, you donʼt need to take commercial orders. You can only do what you love — scripts and filming.

At least this is how Ostrikov imagined the life of feature film directors.

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As soon as Filippov found out that Ostrikov did not have a directorʼs diploma, he changed his mind. Ostrikov could only guess about the reasons. A peculiarity of the Ukrainian budget process after 2014 was that the state gave money to young directors for their feature-length debut — but on the condition that they have specialized education. Without the possibility of receiving state funds, young debutantes were of little interest to anyone.

The strange dream dissipated too quickly. Everything was as usual again: you need to make money, find cheat codes for the industry and hope for the best. However, the victory gave Ostrikov confidence in his abilities. He realized that lack of experience can be an advantage. He easily took on what others thought was impossible. Starting from 2014, he began to shoot one short film every year.

At the same time, Ostrikov joined the "SUK" filmmakers community, which was founded by young directors Philip Sotnychenko and Valeriya Sochyvets. For several years in a row, SUK supervised screenings of Ukrainian short films within the Gogolfest. At one of these screenings, "The Stop" was seen by the famous Ukrainian producer Yuriy Minzyanov.

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After the victory of the Euromaidan, new times began in the Ukrainian film industry. State Film Agency, which distributed budget funds, was headed by Pylyp Illenko, a lawyer by education, a member of the same glorious Illenko family, but already a generation younger. One of his important innovations was the open competitive selection (pitching) of projects: now they were broadcast on YouTube. Every year the State Film Agency budget grew, over the next four years it multiplied 20 times.

The new rules of the game and money brought progressive producers into the industry, who got their hands on TV shows and commercials, but had the ambitions of cinematographers. They wanted to leave behind not a "product", but strong pictures — as strong as those that once made them fall in love with the profession.

Yuriy Minzyanov was one of such producers. A longtime employee of the large Star Media studio, together with his son he founded a small production company Kristi Films. He started by giving young directors small budgets for a short feature to test their strength. When Minzyanov watched "The Stop", he suggested a similar experiment to Ostrikov.

Ostrikov did not trust Minzyanov at first, but he quickly realized that he was an idealistic man, just as idealistic as himself. Minzyanov allocated him several thousand dollars in order to understand how he would dispose of the budget. Now Ostrikov could hire professional actors, and not just cast his friends. Over the next few years, he shot the short films “Golden Love" and "Graduationʼ97". With his last work, he won the OIFF competition and got into the program of Locarno, the fourth European film festival in terms of status.

Together with Pavlo Ostrikov, a new generation of young directors grew up in Ukrainian cinema. Philip Sotnychenko, Kateryna Gornostay, Antonio Lukich, Nariman Aliyev, Marysya Nikityuk — they all shot short films and dreamed of full-length ones. They were all friends, read each otherʼs scripts, supported each other and competed with each other.

In parallel, Yuriy Minzyanov launched the production of films from the "art-mainstream" category: he expected that a wide audience would like them, but each of them would remain an authorʼs statement. With Ostrikov, he discussed his idea for a full-length debut: the Earth has died, and somewhere in the middle of the solar system, the last man in the universe is wandering on a spaceship. Ostrikov wanted to call the film "U Are The Universe". He wrote the first draft of the script back in 2015.

Minzyanov and Ostrikov estimated the budget and realized that almost $2.5 million would have to be spent on filming. Minzyanov considered it unrealistic to raise such an amount, so he began to persuade Ostrikov to come up with something simpler for his debut film — "closer to the Earth." But Ostrikov resisted. Partly because he was in love with the idea, partly because he did not realize the level of complexity in the production of sci-fi.

They agreed that Ostrikov would "seek happiness somewhere else."

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In 2017, the OIFF team decided to unite all those involved in the industry into the Ukrainian Film Academy, modeled after the American one. Professional cinematographers, festival directors, film critics, distributors, patrons became "academics". Just like the American one, the Ukrainian Film Academy had to present its prize once a year — "Golden Dzyga". In the first year, “Golden Love” was nominated for it.

On the sidelines of the award ceremony, Ostrikov met producer Volodymyr Yatsenko. Yatsenko was just as dreamy as Minzyanov, but belonged to a different, younger generation and had a different background. The company he founded together with his wife has long been a leader in the "service" advertising market. He shot a lot for European and American brands, in particular with Hollywood directors and cinematographers. He already had his first big project: debutant director Yaroslav Lodygin filmed Serhiy Zhadanʼs novel "Voroshilovgrad", which was adapted by Natalia Vorozhbyt.

Yatsenko asked Ostrikov if he had any ideas for a full meter, and Ostrikov sent him the script "U Are The Universe". The two and a half million dollars needed to shoot it in quality was a significant sum for any European producer. The similar American film Moon cost only twice as much, starred American first-level stars, and even it barely paid off at the box office.

The genre was a separate challenge — it required complex scenery, animatronics, hundreds of frames with computer graphics. From a rational point of view, entrusting such a project to a debutante was a mistake. But director Ostrikov was in love with the idea. And producer Yatsenko appreciated how much Ostrikov was in love with it.

From this moment, Ostrikov counts down the history of the film. It was seven years before its premiere at the film festival.

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In 2018, Ostrikov and Yatsenko began to travel to international film markets, where film authors and those who are ready to finance production meet — distributors, agents, festival selectors. They looked for money at Frontieres in Montreal and at Les Arcs in the French Alps. In 2019, they won the competitive selection of State Film Agency — the state promised to give part of the necessary two and a half million.

Usually, the search for money in international film markets takes several years, and "U Are The Universe" was no exception. While Ostrikov and Yatsenko were collecting the budget, presidential elections were held in Ukraine, which were won by Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The leadership of the Ministry of Culture has changed: it was now headed by television manager Volodymyr Borodyanskyi, who previously managed Viktor Pinchukʼs media group.

Borodyanskyiʼs team found that the situation is twofold. On the one hand, the film industry has blossomed over the past five years. Dozens of Ukrainian films were released every year, they were consistently nominated at international festivals, dozens of new studios appeared, and a new generation of directors and screenwriters grew up. On the other hand, a significant part of the money was invested in "patriotic cinema" of dubious quality, which failed at the box office.

The new management of State Film Agency changed the funding rules, strengthened the selection criteria, cut budgets and canceled the results of the last pitching. Ostrikovʼs project also fell under the knife. The team had to wait another year — until the next competitive selection.

It seemed to Ostrikov that he had been preparing his debut for an eternity. He became interested in stand-up and lived off the money he earned as a scriptwriter on various TV channels. Among other things, he wrote scripts for the TV series " Sex, Insta, ZNO ", directed by his old friend from "SUK" Antonio Lukich.

Finally, in 2020, they won the pitching again, and Volodymyr Yatsenkoʼs company began preparing for shooting. They built scenery in the former pavilions of "Ukranimafilm", found a partner studio to create visual effects. Ostrikov approved the actor Volodymyr Kravchuk for the main role a long time ago. He saw him in theater plays and serials and knew that he would play both comedic and tragic scenes well. A French actress was approved for the female role.

Filming was divided into two stages: with simple (interior) scenes and complex ones, when the main characters "go out into outer space" — the actors had to be suspended on cables. The first stage took a whole month and ended in early January 2022. Ostrikov had read in the news that a full-scale invasion was imminent, but he did not believe that it would actually happen.

A hotel has already been booked for the French actress. A week before the start of the second stage of filming, on February 24, 2022, Pavlo Ostrikov planned to go to the workshop to inspect her space suit. But, of course, he didnʼt go anywhere.

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The Russian invasion broke the project, but did not destroy it completely. Too much time and effort was invested in the preparation. Too much has already been done. In the first days of the full-scale war, Ostrikov went to live with his parents in the Khmelnytsky region and returned to Kyiv in the spring. The new phase of the war took away his desire to continue working on the movie. However, he had been going to his debut for six years and understood that he had to complete it.

Much had to be done anew. For example, looking for money again. He had to look for an actress again: a French woman refused to go to Kyiv after a rocket attack on the power system in October 2022. He had to think over the visual effects again. Ostrikov did not manage to do everything exactly as he planned — it turned out to be too expensive and too long.

It seemed to him that he had already wasted too much time. Ostrikov saw how his colleagues were releasing films that had begun to be shot before the full-scale war, while he was struggling with editing. He could not even imagine that completing the work would be so difficult. At the final stage, he began to feel depressed. It seemed to him that he had made a terrible mistake. Turned the wrong way. Maybe even chose the wrong profession.

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The year 2024 is on the calendar. Ostrikov is sitting in the audience hall. His debut was selected for the festival in Toronto — in the last remaining slot. He is watching his film with a large audience for the first time. The hall laughs exactly where it should laugh and freezes exactly when it should freeze. There are many journalists from small local publications in the hall. In a few days, reviews will come out — and the film will be praised.

Can it be considered that the story reached a happy ending?

Nine years have passed since Ostrikov finished the first draft of the script. Since the beginning of work on the film — seven years passed. He had to overcome too many obstacles, experience too many failures, so that this could not leave character unchanged. He can no longer call himself an optimist. But he still believes that cinema can change people for the better.

His debut film was not perfect. He also has marks on it. Like many cultural phenomena that have survived in recent years, his film is a cinema with a scar.

Translated from Ukrainian by Anton Semyzhenko.