Wayfarers / Podorozhni

This film is a melancholic poetic study depicting the house for veterans in Pushcha-Vodytsia, a psychoneurological dispensary, as well as fields, songs, trains… Capturing the narrative of this short film is challenging. It’s easier to assess the somber aura of the State institutions depicted and the contrast that arises between the claustrophobia-inducing corridors and the residents’ memories of freedom. Memories about the children running across snow-covered fields, about the lullaby Oh, liuli liuli, I want to sleep, performed for the film by Mariana Beniuk.

The film was produced by director Ihor Strembytskyi together with his wife, screenwriter and film critic Nataliia Kononchuk. The film’s charm and its following were amplified by its low budget (3,000 dollars), the use of contrasting black-and-white “Svema” film, and elegant cinematography based on slow panoramas and short but clear portraits, captured by photography enthusiast Strembytskyi together with his fellow student Artem Vasyliev.

A native of the Hutsul region, a student of Serhii Bukovskyi and Volodymyr Kukorenchuk, Ihor Strembytskyi seemed to come out of nowhere. The early 2000s in Ukrainian cinema were characterized by emptiness and lack of prospects, void of any breakthroughs. Film financing was spotty. Strembytskyi’s senior colleagues went to work in television, and his peers could only show their short films a few times a year at festivals like Vidkryta Nich and Molodist. And suddenly the film Wayfarers not only made it to the main competition of Cannes, the world’s most famous film festival, but also unexpectedly received its award.

No less surprising in this story is the subsequent fate of Strembytskyi and Kononchuk. The crisis in the Ukrainian film industry of the 2000s prevented the young duo from making a career in cinema, even despite the Cannes award and personal recognition from President Viktor Yushchenko. Strembytskyi disappeared from the radar for more than a decade. He worked at the Tonis TV channel and sometimes assisted Serhii Bukovskyi and Illia Khrzhanovskyi. He returned to cinema only in 2017, with an unexpected four-part VR360 documentary anthology Shepherds.