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THEY WHO SURROUND US

By Troy RUPTASH

Historical - Completed 2020

A Ukrainian farmer living in Alberta loses his wife in a tragic accident. Guilt and grief send him into an emotional spiral where mysterious and inexplicable events force him to relive traumatic incidents from his childhood in Ukraine.

Festivals
& Awards

EIFF 2020

Audience Award

- Year of production
- 2020
- Genres
- Historical, First film, Drama
- Countries
- CANADA
- Languages
- ENGLISH, UKRANIAN
- Budget
- 1 - 3 M$
- Duration
- 88 mn
- Director(s)
- Troy RUPTASH
- Writer(s)
- Troy RUPTASH
- Cast
- Ali LIEBERT, Vera GRAZIADEI, Troy RUPTASH
- Producer(s)
- Rosanne MILLIKEN, Sandy WILDE
- Synopsis
- They Who Surround Us is a narrative feature length film set in a Ukrainian Canadian community in the 1980's. The main character, Roman, escaped from Ukraine in 1943, at the age of 8, after his mother and sister were brutally murdered by occupying Russian soldiers. His uncle, Stefan, a Ukrainian insurgent soldier, hid him from the Russians, allowing him to narrowly escape death and flee the country.
  
  Flash forward to 1987. Roman is a farmer living in Alberta. He's recently lost his wife, Kalyna, in a tragic accident. His grief is debilitating and difficult for him to process - he's by nature quiet, and like many of those who survived but did not escape the horrors of the war, he has a deep need to keep his emotions and memories of that time at a safe distance. Roman and Kalyna had a storybook love and share an 8 year old son, Mykola. A son that Roman, at this time does not know how to look after.
  
  We gradually learn through flashbacks, that Roman's wife dies in a horrific accident. His guilt and grief send him into emotional turmoil where reality and fantasy begin to be intruded upon by inexplicable events. He begins to hear a woman singing a lullaby in the woods near his home, he sees soldiers crawling about on the forest floor, and darting across the road. Fragments of a beautiful reality float in and out of his awareness in an eerie juxtaposition to his unravelling circumstances.
  
  Also unfolding throughout this narrative are flashes of the morning he and his mother and sister were dragged from their Ukrainian village home by Russian invaders, an event so far in his past that he blocked it from his memory. Roman's mind wanders deep into the woods and he comes face to face with the full horror of his childhood: witnessing his mother putting his baby sister into the river before being shot by a Russian soldier. Having finally faced this deep old wound, Roman can finally move beyond it.
  
  As Roman leaves the forest, (and Kalyna) behind, he is able to begin the process of putting his life back together. He emerges as a man who is ready to move on and care for his son. As he learns to negotiate life as a single father, the tightly knit community is there and ready to support him.

THEY WHO SURROUND US

Festivals& Awards

Festivals
& Awards