ATLANTIS

According to Greek mythology, the island kingdom of Atlantis sank to the bottom of the sea within “a single day and a single fateful night” in the wake of a natural disaster. In Vasyanovych’s film, by contrast the post-apocalyptic landscapes in Eastern Ukraine of the near future have taken shape over a longer period of time. What remains is a desert, in which the consequences of war, industry and the extraction of mineral resources have made human life impossible. MAD MAX meets STALKER. In painstakingly composed tableaus, huge excavators and military vehicles drive slowly through the mud. Amid this hellscape lives Serhii, a veteran suffering from PTSD, alone in his broken-down home. When the steel foundry where he works closes, he thinks about finally leaving the “zone”. Then an encounter with Katya, a volunteer working for the “Black Tulip” organisation, which recovers and identifies the bodies of war victims, changes his way of looking at life.