Venice 81. Questions for Dmytro Sukhanov - Honeymoon ukrainian movie

Can you tell us about the production process of the movie?

I general we were doing a principal photography in a studio. So even during sirens and missile attacks we were in concrete building what is kind of shelter. Old soviet era studio with broken heating system was cold enough to bring temperature in studio to reality of occupied residential buildings in February 2022 (which also were cut from electricity and heating during first days of occupation). With small budget and no possibilities to control sound on real locations and no time for postproduction (as we know date of DCP delivery to Venice during production already) we decided to use Unreal Engine technology for LCD screen beside of windows and it made more complicated prep for shooting but faster photography. So courtyard outside was complete copy of real courtyard in 3d.

We had some potential partners in Germany who would like to help us and contribute camera equipment to Ukraine for shooting for free as in-kind of contribution, but there are was no insurance company ready to cover Ukraine, so we couldn’t use this offer. Aslo crossing the border for males are limited during martial law, and we couldn’t accept in-kind of colorgrading or sound re-recording contribution as dop and sound directors are males.

You were also in the war. How did this experience influence your work as a producer?

Not only as a producer. As father of kids (my kids are in Poland now), as ukrainian citizen. All aspect of life has been changed in 2022. Of cause, our main fund was frozen the first two years, and money redirected to the army. Signed authors are in depression and contest of current reality made some topics non actual anymore in one moment even if your contract has been signed already.

Thank for European support it is many possibilities was appears to support development (and redevelopment, what is very important) of projects and documentary production. So until now there are no solution in production support from ukrainian side instead of uklrainain funds. Only as minority, but if you have no confirmed or frozen ukrainian funds for fiction it is deal end of financing at the moment except such specific programs as Biennale College Cinema. May be nobody believe that we can delivery fiction films in Ukraine at the moment.  But you see. We can.

Will the movie be distributed abroad? Can you tell us anything about future projects?

Sure, foreign audience is very important for us at the moment. We would like to speak with you that way. We have an International Sales company attached before premier. It is Reason8 Film from UK that I was working as producer before with one of my previous film. Also we are aimed for more festivals to let people in different part of world to discover abstractive news feed as honest personal story.

With Zhanna Ozrina we are developing an other project that should be next one - Ground Zero. We have already attached French co-producers (Good Fortune Film) - Romanian (The East Company)  with confirmed co-development money from Creative Media and Solidarity Fund. And there are chance to finance production for shooting next year, but let’s see. Things are changing every month

With an other project - TWINS by Eva Neymann, we have been selected for Venice Finance Gap Market this year as well.

Also we are developing series with Polish Co-Producer (Anna Rozalska) and an other ukrianein (Natalie Libet), where we got Best Pitching Award on Series Mania last year.

Many plans. But truth for ukrainian producers - you can hardly plans more than 3 month ahead during war in your country.

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