Butterfly Vision / Бачення метелика
Ukraine, Croatia, Sweden, Czech Republic 2022
Directed by Maksym Nakonechnyi, drama, 107 min, eng subtitles, 16+
Written by Maksym Nakonechnyi, Iryna Tsilyk
With Rita Burkovska, Natalya Vorozhbit, Daria Lorenci, Lyubomyr Valivots
Lilia, whose call sign during the war was “Butterfly”, cannot sleep, her dreams are pixelated. Returning home from the front line after being held captive for several months in a Donbas prison, this 29-year-old military aerial reconnaissance officer discovers that she is pregnant. Will she manage to survive this trauma and save the child in a society that is not ready to accept either of them?
Using all sorts of footage to convey images of ruin and dysfunction, this very timely film with a strong central performance tells a simple, yet intense story about the imprints left by war on individuals and society. Their life is deprived of the present but not of its determination to hope for the future.
The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard sidebar of the Cannes Film Festival 2022.