Sales agent Lightdox has acquired world rights to Intercepted by Ukrainian-Canadian director Oksana Karpovych ahead of its world premiere in Berlinale’s Forum section.
Karpovych’s sophomore feature sees her contrast scenes of everyday life of Ukrainians since the full-scale invasion with phone conversations between Russian soldiers and their families that have been intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence services.
Karpovych’s first feature documentary Don’t Worry, the Doors Will Open won the New Visions Award at Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) in 2019 and received a special mention at Hot Docs 2020.
Intercepted juxtaposes the images of the destruction caused by the invasion and the day-to-day life of the Ukrainian people with the voices of the Russian soldiers. In the intercepted calls, the soldiers talk of their heroic illusions through to their disillusionment with the conflict and war crimes.
Karpovych said: “When the Russian full-scale invasion started, I was in Ukraine working as a local producer with Al Jazeera English News. This work allowed me to access many places in different Ukrainian regions where I witnessed Russian war crimes. At night, after work, I started listening to the intercepted phone calls of the Russian soldiers in Ukraine. The discrepancy between the brutal reality that I was living during the day and the things I was hearing at night was shocking. In these recordings, the Russians sounded human. That was the most painful thing to accept: Why do humans do such inhumane things? This question has brought me to the film, which is based on a simple juxtaposition of two realities trying to understand the full complexity of the “Russikiy mir” (world), to comprehend what kind of thinking is behind the invasion. Its interpretation is open for the viewers.”
Lightdox’s Anna Berthollet said: “We discovered the project a couple of years ago during the EURODOC workshop, where Oksana’s artistic vision instantly captivated us.”
Intercepted is produced by Rocío B. Fuentes and Giacomo Nudi for Canadian outfit Les Films Cosmos in coproduction with Pauline Tran Van Lieu and Lucie Rego for Hutong Productions (France) and Darya Bassel and Olha Beskhmelnytsina for Moon Man Productions (Ukraine).
The film received financial support from ARTE France, SODEC, Telefilm Canada, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, CNC, Visions Sud Est and Chicken & Egg Pictures, with the support of Post-Moderne and Women Make Movies.
The project took part in various markets, labs and forums, including DokFest Munich with the RIDM – Coproduction Documentaire Québec-Bavière initiative, EuroDoc 2022, SODEC Lab Immersion Cannes 2022, Sheffield DocFest Meet Market 2022, CPH:DOX Forum 2023 and Hot Docs Forum 2023, where it won the CMF-Hot Docs Forum Canadian Best Pitch Prize.
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