LA PALISIADA

Ukraine, 1996. Five months before the moratorium on capital punishment, two old friends, a police detective and a forensic psychiatrist, investigate a murder of their colleague. Long time ago, both of them were in love with the widow of the deceased. Immersed in the complicated case and long forgotten memories, they create a future where their children have to live, inheriting unrealized aspirations of their parents.

“The year 1996 is just a point in history, but it’s actually a very important one for Ukraine. For instance, a currency reform was carried out then, and the hryvnia was introduced in place of the coupon / karbovanets. In 1995-1996 Ukraine also vowed to abolish the death penalty, establishing later a moratorium on executions. Capital punishment was formally abolished in Ukraine in 2000, so death sentences were still handed down until then, but they were no longer enforced. The last execution took place in the second half of the 1990s. But these are dry facts, a rundown of historical events, which a documentary perhaps may preoccupy itself with. I didn’t want to make a documentary film or try to tell or depict how it was back then. In fact, the film makes no claim to reality. It is a stylisation of that period, of the spirit of the times and the daily lives of people.”

DIRECTOR, SCREENPLAY, EDITING: Philip Sotnychenko. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Volodymyr Usyk. PRODUCTION DESIGN: Margarita Kulyk. COSTUME DESIGN: Volodymyr Kuznetsov. SOUND: Serhiy Avdeev. CAST: Andrii Zhurba, Novruz Pashayev, Oleksandr Parkhomenko, Valeria Oleynikova, Olena Mamchur, Oleksandr Maleev, Stepan Barabash, Serhii Luzanovskyi, Oleksandr Mavrits. PRODUCERS: Halyna Kryvorchuk, Valeria Sochyvets, Sashko Chubko. PRODUCTION: VIATEL, Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema.