What: Klondike is a Ukrainian film that is set in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, where Irka and Tolik try to lead a normal life against a background of developing conflict.
When and Where:
Part of BFI Film Festival.
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Wednesday 05 October 2022 20:55, BFI Southbank, NFT2
- Thursday 06 October 2022 18:15 Curzon Soho Cinema, Screen 2
- Thursday 06 October 2022 18:30 Curzon Soho Cinema, Screen 3
Director-Screenwriter: Maryna Er Gorbach
Producers: Sviatoslav Bulakovskyi, Mehmet Bahadir Er, Maryna Er Gorbach
With: Oxana Cherkashyna, Sergiy Shadrin, Oleg Scherbina
Ukraine 2022. 100min
Language: Ukranian, Russian, Chechen, Dutch with English subtitles
More about the film – official website
Klondike is a matter-of-fact and angry film about a war seen from the inside, as it muscles its way into a region and its people in bewildering, violent increments, and the equally fierce and shocking forces of life and resistance.
Read this film review.
More About the Event
Maryna Er Gorbach’s film is an uncomfortably accurate portrait of the attitudes and mentality of both ordinary people and pro-Russian separatists (one speaks Chechen, in a disturbing foretaste of recent events). Irka is expecting a baby and her husband, Tolik – who is apolitical – finds himself assisting his separatist friend. It’s a visually striking film with widescreen compositions making dramatic use of a landscape both beautiful and desolate. Er Gorbach, who wrote, directed and edited the film, describes Klondike as a film ‘for women’. It’s her first film as sole director and includes some harrowing episodes. Set against the shooting down of the Malaysian flight MH17 in 2014 and completed before the current invasion of Ukraine, it’s a devastating and essential portrait.
Content warning Contains scenes that some audience members may find distressing, including simulated animal cruelty.