Marina Stepanska – Falling #KVIFF2017

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Marina Stepanska, director of the film Falling.

Director Marina Stepanska presented her film Falling in the East of the West competition strand 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. At the start of the interview, Stepanska tells that she is quite curious to see how an international audience will react to her film. Why? Because while, to be sure, the film revolves around a blooming romance between a young lady and a young man that is easily universally understood, it is also a film that is marked by Ukrainian elements, a lot of which revolve around the Ukrainian revolution of 2014. Stepanska tells us about a lot of them, and her desire to ultimately make a movie that would represent normal Ukrainian people, which she claims is something that is increasingly rare. Her decision to do so is reflected, for instance, in the way in which she decided to cast two actors in the lead who had never acted in a feature film before. Nonetheless, as mentioned, the film does have a universal dimension, and even an optimistic one, which she also discusses.

Falling: young Anton has just been released from the rehab centre where he had sought treatment for alcoholism and drug addiction. His grandpa, a man of stern principles who brought him up from a young age, takes him off to the country, far from the lure of the big city. One night Anton meets Katia, who, like him, is trying to find her bearings in life, although at least one thing should be clear in her mind: She is shortly to be leaving for Berlin with her boyfriend Johann, a German photojournalist she met during the Maidan demonstrations. Her encounter with Anton, however, brings a new impulse into her life and profoundly affects both of them… The debuting Ukrainian director uses remarkable sensitivity in her depiction of the fragility of fledgling emotion, to a great extent aided by the finely nuanced performances of the leads. In a broader context Marina Stepanska’s psychological drama is also a strong statement on the current young generation as it tries to find its place in post-revolutionary Ukraine.

For the official website of the festival, click here.