While the others are talking about the crisis, we are working. And the volumes are unprecedented. This is how it looks in numbers: presently FILM.UA Group has about 30 projects in production, all of them in diverse genres, for different media and various audiences, from preschool to 18+. Theatrical films, series, animation, TV programs, digital projects – in total about 390 hours of unique (including premium) content.
Today we’d like to tell about each of those in detail.
Theatrical films
In summer, we finished filming the first Ukrainian fantasy movie about superheroes, The Stronghold. Now the project is in post-production. The editing is completed, and the VFX team is working on the material. Postmodern company plans about 500 shots, which will make the story about the boy’s journey to the past truly fascinating. By the way, this work will be partially available for viewing in an official movie trailer to be released in September.
Series
In August, the filming of season three of The Sniffer started. In the new episodes of the film about a detective with a phenomenal sense of smell the main accent will be put on personal stories of the lead characters with puzzling and intriguing investigations to match. The Sniffer and Viktor Lebedev do not sit around: a forest, a theatre, an abandoned railway station – the locations are varied, and it is just the beginning! The episodes will be filmed in Kyiv and Tallinn. The premiere is planned for 2017 on ICTV (Ukraine) and Channel One (Russia).
Besides, in the end of the summer we started working on a 12-episode series Line of Light, a joint project of FILM.UA and Intra Communications Inc. The main character has grown up in a totalitarian religious community but was strong enough to stand up against His Highness the tyrant. The location for filming life in this community is the well-known Korostyshev quarry, a unique natural object in Zhytomyr region with a huge set built in and around it. The arbors, canopies and stairs have indulged the tastes of local authorities so much that after the filming is completed many of them will stay in the quarry and become a part of tourist infrastructure. We’ll remind you that we already have a similar experience in stock: the fortress built for The Stronghold has become the basis for an entertainment park in Troyeschina which we are building in the framework of “Making It Together” project.
The filming of 12-episode mystical detective Contact is also in progress (joint production of FILM.UA and Intra Communications Inc.). Its director Mikhail Barkan is making a complicated story about three people becoming interconnected after accidentally appearing in the zone of a mystical explosion. Each of them also acquires supernatural powers. We’ll find out how the characters will use those unexpected gifts – for the greater good of people or for their own purposes – during the premiere in 2017. For now, the film crew is working their hands off: a unique cast, challenging tricks, various locations, CGI – all those are to translate into a captivating series.
The filming period of a 16-episode dramedy Step Dan (Step Dave format from New Zealand) is nearing its end. The main characters, a 24-year-old Dan and a 39-year-old Tina, can surely be happy together, but stereotypes are a terrible force even in the 21st century. The series will be premiered in 2017, and we’ll surely find out how the characters have coped with the pressure of public opinion and whether three children, age difference, crazy friends and a former mother-in-law can prevent a woman from finding her happiness.
In 2017, Ukraina TV channel will premiere a 12-episode criminal melodrama Another One’s Life (working title).
In August we finished filming this story about a girl who has betrayed her father for an allegedly noble purpose and found herself in a totally different reality. Then, we immediately started filming the following melodramatic thriller, a four-episode TV film A House on a Cold Stream (joint production of FILM.UA and Ukraina TV channel) about an orphan undergoing lots of tribulations while searching for the truth about her parents. The mini-series will be premiered already this autumn.
The new season of Inter TV channel will feature a premiere of a 40-episode melodrama Threads of Fate (an adaptation of Kdrama Cinderella’s Shoe); it is now in the midst of filming. A story about two sisters who ended up in different families after their parents’ deaths and were then brought together again after many years as rivals, in love with the same man… We are sure that the audience will follow the well-twisted intrigue with great interest and will also be happy to see their favorite actors!
The filming of two new seasons for the first Ukrainian-language medical drama Doctor on Call is ongoing (the premiere will take place at Ukraine TV channel). This time the series authors promise more treats to their fans: even more touching stories of emergency room patients coupled with revealing the personalities of permanent characters as well as showing the families of the four super-doctors.
In September, the filming of a new four-episode TV film 40+ Or Love Geometry will start. It is about the Universe being very bizarre in fulfilling our wishes and requests so one is to be very careful with those. The filming period will also start for a 12-episode adventure melodrama The Short Word No (joint production with Intra Communications Inc.). Besides, the relaunches of popular series Woman’s Doctor (season three, 40 episodes) and Window of Life (season two, 24 episodes) are planned.
Animation
Animagrad studio continues working on animation projects for Ukrainian and international markets. A 3D feature film The Stolen Princess is in production; Mavka is in pre-production, as well as children’s educational series Ticky, The Know-It-Alls Club and Mom Is Hurrying Home.
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The Stolen Princess is an adventure fantasy film based on a poem by Aleksandr Pushkin, which will surprise the audience with unexpected twists of the classic plot. The story about misadventures of a wandering actor Ruslan looking for the kidnapped princess Mila will make it to the Ukrainian cinema screens in late 2017. The animation project is also planned for international release: presently, the rights for distribution were acquired by Polsat media group (Poland). Preliminary agreements for the sale of rights have been signed with ProFilms (Bulgaria), Cinema 24 (Iran) and KLB (France).
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The script is ready and the art is being actively developed for feature animation film Mavka based on a classic story by Lesya Ukrainka. This autumn we are going to see the project’s first teaser.
The studio also has two series in production for preschool and primary school children, which will be able to compete on par with similar popular products: import replacement of educational animation content for children is a leading strategy of Animagrad.
Jointly with Glowberry, a creative production company for multimedia children’s content, Animagrad produces an animation series Mom Is Hurrying Home based on a popular children’s book with the same title published by Glowberry. The series will be made in the style of 2D animation; the planned season format is 26 episodes x 5 mins. The pilot episode will be aired in autumn 2016, and in winter 2018 it is planned to complete the full first season.
Ticky, a series for preschool children, is produced in a special animation technique called toon shader; thanks to it, the charismatic characters look even more colorful. Besides, an educational series for preschoolers The Know-It-Alls Club will enter into production in autumn; this series has received financial support from Ukrainian State Film Fund.
Moreover, season four of children’s animation series The Eskimo Girl about the instructive adventures of a little Northern Pole inhabitant and her friends is now complete. The first three seasons of the series have found their audiences all over the world – The Eskimo Girl is adapted for the USA, Canada, South Corea, the Emirates, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Estonia, Sweden, Norway and Finland.
TV projects
Sexism is alive, especially on the road! The men are still convinced that they drive better simply because they are men. And not every marriage is able to survive the situation when the wife drives and her husband is an instructor… Using its own format, FILM.UA jointly with O.K. Media films a funny and touching project on family relationships on the road, Teach the Wife to Drive. The TV show will be premiered on Yu channel.
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Filming continues for a cycle of documentaries about urban explorations, the Insiders Project. Each episode of the project is a short film about breathtaking extreme trips to the most dangerous and mysterious spots in Kyiv. Along with the TV show host Dmitry Gromov you will push the boundaries of the permitted, see the bottom side of the city and feel the fragility of human life in comparison with the incredible power of a metropolis. The mission of Insiders Project team is to show unique cultural, historical and architectural heritage as each year Ukraine loses many such sites.
Besides, on September 19 Inter TV channel will premiere the new seasons of such projects as Court Cases. Crime and Punishment (90 episodes) and Family Court (90 episodes) produced by FILM.UA.
Digital projects
For its own YouTube channel, as well as for paid satellite channels, the Group produces a range of video blogs and short videos on various topics. Family Is… features an extremely useful collection of videos with life stories, experience and recommendations from the most popular blogging moms, pediatricians, psychologists, neonatologists and experts from many other fields.
Oh My Look! is a collection of beauty blogs in a single channel for those who appreciate beauty.
The Film Cuisine and Film Cocktails cycles on cooking and cinema will share the recipes from cult movies.
The HERITAGE project is a cycle of ambient videos dedicated to the beauty of Ukrainian national costume.
Another blog dedicated to cinema is MEDIA ChTiVo; it tellsabout the books which were made into cult movies; we also have a unique cycle entitled Backstage, with footage from FILM.UA Group projects.
We continue experimenting with VR360 content on FILM.UA VR channel. Very soon we’ll present our experiments in augmented reality format.
And this is not all of our news, believe it or not! We’ll keep you posted.
