Ivanna Illienko

The action is set at the start of the twentieth century, between a village by the River Dnyepr and the coast of Florida. While the story has ironic, romantic and sometimes mystic angles, the bitter aspects of emigration from Ukraine to the United States become clearly visible.

The film takes place in Kyiv during the day. Daniel Pritulyak, serving foreigners as guide, invents a route for the Americans on the life of an obscure but talented poet Danila Pritulyak.

There is a ballad written by Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko called “That Catherine's hut is on the hill...". It is about a rescue of Catherine's lover, whom she saves by posing him as her brother. This story, as a parable, flies throughout Ukraine's history and reconstructs its dramatic and heroic episodes. Every challenge, including the Chernobyl accident, leaves Catherine without her home. But she is stubborn, as many generations of Ukrainians, in rebuilding her house out of pieces. The story is not only about Catherine's redemption, but also about Ukraine's survival throughout the centuries that is reflected in a folk tradition called Toloka.

A man falls in love with a half-woman/half-phoenix who fell to Earth from the sky.

The Hero of the Soviet Union becomes a GULAG prisoner and then an Indian Chief.

A young boy tries to earn some money by "renting" his dog to the film studio.