Zhanna Ozirna: “Cinema gave me new life”

Meeting with the Ukrainian director of Honeymoon, winner of the first Build your Dream award, rewarding a first feature released in theaters between the two editions of Cannes

Honeymoon features a couple who move into a new apartment in Kyiv, just before the first explosions of the Russian offensive ring out in the night. The starting point of a distressing closed session which is striking for your ability to bring out an intimate story in a war context. What made you want this project as your first feature film?

Zhanna Ozirna: Everything starts from April 4, 2022, the day when the Russian army must retreat and leave the Kyiv region which it had occupied for a little over a month. I was living in Warsaw at the time because the Polish Film Academy had invited me to stay. And when Kyiv was liberated, I returned home. I started reading all the articles about those who had resisted in this region but also 8 years earlier in the Revolution of Dignity. A word that, for Ukrainians, goes hand in hand with freedom. With this idea that death can emerge at any moment and from anywhere. That’s the first image I had in my head. Then I realized that among the people interviewed in these articles was a classmate of my companion. So he put us in touch and I went to see. We talked for three hours and I drew sketches of this apartment to imagine the one in the film.

It was obvious that this apartment would be that of a couple?

No, initially I had thought of a family. But I quickly understood that the dynamic that it was going to create would not work with what I imagined because I would then have to construct different subplots to bring the different members of this family to life. I therefore chose to refocus on a couple that I continued to feed with testimonies from friends.

This shoot only lasted 17 days. You mentioned the word dignity earlier. Does making this film also mean regaining your dignity?

What is certain is that cinema has given me new life. Because when I had to stop doing my job because of the Russian invasion, my mind was suddenly invaded by very factual and practical considerations that had been foreign to me until then. Who am I? What is my use when I can no longer make films and I don’t have children? Have the chance to tour Honeymoon allowed me to understand that this is where I am useful.

The BYD Award that you received testifies to the love that has surrounded your film far beyond its borders since its presentation at the Venice Film Festival. Did he surprise you?

Yes, especially since I didn’t feel any love for this film in my country. And for a simple reason: each Ukrainian has their own experience of war and struggles to find themselves in the one that I am proposing. Struggles to accept the part of fiction that I put there. I understand this very well, but what makes this prize awarded by an international jury so important to me? The recognition of a filmmaker’s gesture which encourages me to continue

Are you already working on a new project?

On two at the same time! One that I had secured funding for before the invasion but obviously lost because all the money was transferred to the army budget. It is an exploration of the historical and collective memory of Ukraine when in 2016 we began this process of trying to definitively break with communism with these central questions: should we erase any type of Soviet heritage or keep some? How far has the influence of communism on our minds gone? This is long-term work and I am currently trying to find funding. But before that I should turn Intimate scenebased on the real life experience of a couple of my friends. In this case a soldier who lost two legs during the war and the exploration of intimate life that he must relearn with his wife, while his body is no longer what it used to be.