THE FILM IS BEING CREATED INSPIRED BY OLHA KOBYLIANSKA'S ON SUNDAY MORNING SHE GATHERED HERBS NOVEL, but the synopsis and atmosphere of the film will only distantly resemble the original version: suspense, mysticism, a complicated story of the characters and their relationships, a slight touch of eroticism contrasted with the magic of the Ukrainian Carpathians and a mix of Ukrainian and Roma cultures promise the viewers a spectacle and intellectual pleasure.
The producers of the film are Iryna Kostyuk (Mavka. The forest song, Roxelana, Crazy Wedding, Crazy Wedding 2) and Anna Eliseeva (Mavka. The forest song, Roxelana). The search for a format to revitalize the genius piece of work of Kobylianska lasted for a whole previous year. The trend for thrillers, mysticism and ethnicity suggested the producers a creative brief, which was brilliantly realized by a play-writer and screenwriter Natalya Vorozhbyt (Cyborgs, The Wild Fields). "After Cyborgs film, I received many offers, but it was The Potion that I agreed to write: my inner play-writer demanded such a story – about freedom and choice, only not in war, but in personal life. While writing this work, I passed through complicated emotions, and I hope that the viewer will also pass through them," says Mrs. Vorozhbyt.
According the creators, the plot of the story develops in the 19th century, but the significance, characters, their personalities and problems are contemporised. There are six main characters in the story, who are somehow involved in the perplexed and dangerous love triangle. And with the sequence of events, the terrible mysteries of the past pop up; the action in the present days is interrupted by mystical flashbacks, which are also related to forbidden love relationships. For this reason, the main question is which one of the lovers will survive and whose worldview will be victorious.
Iryna Kostyuk comments on her work: "The novel of Kobylianska has impressed me since school years, so, it is my personal dream to create a movie based on it. Its deepness, characters, tragedy cannot leave anyone indifferent, and I am sure that with a good presentation of the plot, all this can be interesting not only for the modern Ukrainian audience, but also for the rest of the world. Our main challenge is to prove that the Ukrainian box office cinema is represented not only by comedies, but also movies of other genres that can tell a viewer about complex things with simplicity and spectacularity."
FILM.UA studio constantly broadens its own full-length range of films of different genres and different scales. The Potion has pretensions to become a film-event , in the spirit of the art mainstream, which balances on the edge of authorial and audience cinema, being in favor of the last one.
"We want to create a movie for wide audience, but it should be reasonable and psychologically truthful. We have already a cool film play with a director Vlad Klimchuk (The Infogolic, Crazy Wedding, Crazy Wedding 2), who has a director’s approach for the movie that includes stylization, a modern way of shooting a thriller, usage of neon lights etc. For me, it is a very atmospheric story about feelings, about selfconsciousness of both men and women and the choice in the end: you are for your own emotions or you simply devote yourself to their power, which deliberately goes to tragedy," says Anna Eliseeva.
The shooting of film is planned to be in Kyiv and in the Carpathians Mountains in the summer of 2020, with future local and, possibly, international distribution. Negotiations with partners and the search for financing are running on now. The Potion was nominated for the current Goskino contest, where it will be presented to the expert commission. The first public exposure of the project to the wide audience has already taken place in June in Kyiv during the Kyiv Comic Con 2019, where the audience greeted the concept and synopsis of the future film with admiration, and it received its first positive reviews in media.
Meanwhile, here is a mood teaser for your attention, representing the mystical atmosphere and the general mood of The Potion. It was arranged for internal purposes by the film team during the development process for inspiration and visualization of ideas, but at the moment they are ready to share it. The video was compiled from shots of TNMK band's video "Angels" (directed by Olga Navrotskaya) and with a specially recorded vocal of Vera Kekelia ("Oi, Ne Khody Hrytsiu, Ta Na Vechornytsi" song). By the way, according to the producers, they plan to further cooperate with Navrotskaya and Kekelia while working upon movie.
Watch the video at this link.
About: FILM.UA Group is the largest Eastern European group of companies in the field of film and television production with vertically integrated business structure. The group is engaged in the development, production, adaptation and distribution of audiovisual content and provides a full range of services.
