06/09/2024 - VENICE 2024: The Ukrainian director shows a completely different kind of honeymoon, as a couple is confined to a flat and must make sure that no one knows they are there

(© Fabrizio de Gennaro/Cineuropa)

Taras and Olya (Roman Lutskyi and Ira Nirsha) move into their new flat. They might not be able to go on an exotic trip, but they seem happy enough, creating a new life for themselves. That is, until the violence that is ravaging their country is suddenly too close to ignore: the Russians have set up a headquarters in their building. Isolated, they decide to stay in the apartment, but they have to make sure that no one knows they are there. Zhanna Ozirna breaks down her Venice Biennale College Cinema film Honeymoon [+see also:
film review
interview: Zhanna Ozirna
film profile].

Cineuropa: So many films about Ukraine focus on what’s happening outside, on the frontlines, on all the ongoing destruction. You stay inside. Why did you want to do that?
Zhanna Ozirna: I’d had this idea ever since the war started. This is a story of a friend of a friend, and a pretty usual one for a lot of people. It’s based on many true stories. Russians would set up their headquarters in residential buildings, and people were stuck in their homes. I would ask them about the details, all the emotions they went through.

Also, the Ukrainian State Film Agency froze the financing of fiction films. We can’t afford to shoot large-scale spectacles any more, and we can’t access this money right now, so everyone is looking for other solutions.

This couple just started their life together – it’s so sweet. But their first flat turns into a trap. They are stuck in the dark, listening to the dangers outside. It feels like a horror movie.
When we first started development, we talked about this, and some people advised us to position it as a horror or a thriller. But for me, a horror is something that scares you with a fictional story. This is reality for many Ukrainians, albeit presented in a condensed way. We live next door to the killers, and we can’t escape them. We hope Russia will collapse one day, but until then, this is how we feel, every day.

There’s hope that comes with love, however. Do you think it’s important to show that a couple like this can survive a nightmare?
We keep losing friends, even regular civilians, and yet so many people I know suddenly decided to get married. Or to get pregnant, even though rockets are flying over their heads every day. Today, I also woke up to the air-raid siren because although I am travelling, I never switched off the notifications. You never know when your partner will be mobilised, so it’s an interesting phenomenon. It’s like there is all this hope in our future and our victory. We’ve been revaluating our priorities since the war started. What’s really important? It would be a lot to go through without any emotional support.

This couple, they are not fighters. They don’t have the right tools, yet they still have to do their best.
It’s a question of survival: you can’t be fighting with each other when you are trying to get by. I didn’t want to exaggerate anything or create some kind of fake drama between them. And also, this film is not really about being in a relationship – it’s about being stuck in limbo. You can’t plan your future, because you don’t know what will happen the next day. You live somewhere in between – I do as well. No one is scheduling a meeting for next month, because you don’t know if your city will even be there. Taras is helpless, which is many men’s biggest fear – all he can do is talk, as that used to be his job. She’s fragile. I was interested in their inner fears. Mine would be to get raped, for example, because we all know how brutal Russians are.

Are festivals less interested in Ukrainian films about the conflict right now? Is there more pressure on you, as filmmakers, to find new ways of showing it?
It’s a war, not a conflict. There was this joke that if that’s the case, World War II could be called the “Polish conflict”. I recently had a conversation with a festival programmer, and he told me that he was “glad” my film was about a relationship and “not about the war”. I told him I feel frustrated when I hear this sentence, and I have been hearing it a lot recently. I think the Western world got tired of the war too early.

I understand it’s just human nature, and I know people support us, but it’s not enough. Emotional or moral support is not enough. For three years, in Ukraine, no fictional films have been made, which means that soon, you won’t be able to watch them at all. The Western world won’t be able to get tired of us any more. They just won’t see us at all.