Alarm Yoga

January, 2022. Long-time neighbours and miners Serhiich and Pashka live in a small village in the Donbas. Their lives would be unremarkable were it not for the fact that they are located in a grey zone at the heart of the conflict between Russian and Ukrainian forces. They are neutral arbiters, frequently hosting members of one army or the other, each fully aware of what their neighbour is doing. But as fighting continues and resources diminish, both men know they must connect with a ravaged world beyond their homes.

Twenty-five-year-old Vadym earns a living recording and selling all kinds of different sounds; nevertheless, he’d rather exchange his life in Kyiv for a better future in far-flung Canada. Thus, when he gets a generous job offer which might help him realise his dream, he jumps at the chance; he soon sets off to record the sounds of animals indigenous to Ukraine and also a rare bird native to the Carpathians. The situation proves somewhat more complicated when Vadym’s companion on the trip turns out to be his mother… To the sounds of a synthesized music score, debuting Ukrainian director Antonio Lukich unfolds a visually creative road movie, in which he demonstrates a highly unusual talent for constructing tragicomic situations.

When the Russo-Ukrainian War reaches their doorstep, the beliefs and conflicts of the Naydiuk family drive them further away from each other, both metaphorically and physically.

Two sisters set out from Warsaw to Kharkiv to pick up their seriously injured father.