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STEP INTO THE COMFORT ZONE

By Yuriy DVIZHON

First film - Development 2024

Four stories of LGBT people who were formed and survived in Ukraine during the USSR and are now going through the experience of war. The invisible generation to whom young queer Ukrainians owe their freedom of choice. This film recreates history and traces their ongoing paths to personal happiness.

- Year of production
- 2024
- Genres
- First film, LGBT, Documentary
- Countries
- UKRAINE, IRELAND
- Languages
- UKRANIAN
- Budget
- 0.3 - 0.6 M$
- Director(s)
- Yuriy DVIZHON
- Writer(s)
- Ljosha CHASHCHYN, Anastasiia ALEKSIEIEVA, Yuriy DVIZHON
- Producer(s)
- Alexandra BRATYSHCHENKO (ELERON PICTURES)
- Synopsis
- Born in the USSR. What does that even mean? For example, fact that you are deprived of any identity: cultural, national, sexual. Your family - the union of a cis woman and a cis man - is the unit of society. A traditionalist society in a totalitarian country. There has never been either communism or socialism here. But there was criminal prosecution for homosexuality. When this “happy home of happy nations” went to the bottom, our heroes were in their twenties, they had enough time to suffer from the system, to live with it, it was challenging to fight with themselves and with the system. Then it became different, it was a little easier, but it was never easy. None of our heroes have probably ever felt truly comfortable, it would seem that they have been through everything. Everything except the war, which made their lives even more difficult, which brought even more pain. Our documentary is about middle-aged queer people, about how they search for themselves, for understanding, how they discover new opportunities and relationships. We`ll see how these people, who fought all their lives, in a world engulfed in war, will find their zone of openness, equality, comfort.
- Partners & financing
- We believe that our project is potentially attractive for co-production due to the universality of the story and the unique setting. We’re glad that our reliable friends from Ireland are on board with us - Sweet Media, with whom Yuriy Dvizhon had already cooperated on commercial projects. Their commercial production experience is exactly what is needed for such a bright and ambitious film as ours. The topic of the project is very close personally to the founder of Sweet Media Andrew Bradford. For this reason, he dared the creation the first documentary project precisely with us. Also, we are working on a collaboration with Swedish and Polish partners. We are interested in Polish partners because we plan to have a shot in Warsaw and Rzeszow.
- Production schedule
- Currently, the project is in the early development stage. All the stories of our characters develop so fast. We need to find the possibility to be closer and to follow them closely as soon as possible. We believe that our project is potentially attractive for co-production due to the universality of the story and the unique setting. The start of the shooting period is planned for October 2023. We are planning to finalize post-production by September 2024.
- Beginning of shooting
- Sep 07, 2023
- End of shooting
- Feb 29, 2024