126 shifts, ten months of work, a lockdown break, the longest working days of 16 to 17 hours, 40 episodes – and the filming period of The Brave Squad detective series is now over!
The project by FILM.UA Group and Ukraina TV channel became innovational: The Brave Squad drama is the first Ukrainian series about domestic violence.
We are proud that our project was the first to raise such a painful taboo topic in our society.
Yulia Mischenko, creative producer and head screenwriter, told about the film’s relevance:
“We live in a society overflowing with violence. Often the perpetrators are former victims: in adult age, they copy the behavior they suffered from in their childhood. Our society’s evolution to become more humane and civilized is possible, if everyone tries to work with their painful traumas, not hush up their problems and talk about them. Our whole team believes that thanks to the series violence victims will feel the strength necessary to break the circle of torture and start a new life.”
Stories from real life
Director Andriy Osmolovsky told about the new episodes of the project:
“Our world is not ideal but in each episode of The Brave Squad the investigators will save people and help those who suffer from tyranny and beatings in their families. Besides, every episode is a separate detective story. There will be love as well: the protagonists will be looking for their happiness but will they actually become happy – that is something we’ll soon see.”
Sometimes the stories seem very scary but there are no made-up details in the plots.
“All stories are from life, namely from crime news. And what’s very important, after the law on domestic violence was adopted the first verdicts to family aggressors have already been delivered,” said Olga Artyukh, project editor-in-chief.
Andriy Osmolovsky also reminded about a terrible coincidence:
“Once, we were filming an episode. The script was scary: how people were tortured and their offenders streamed the process on the Internet. And somebody on the set says that a similar story is now shown on crime news on some TV channel. In Kyiv, police has arrested criminals who filmed human torture and streamed everything online…”
And the main thing is that thanks to our project many people found out what to do and where to go for help as in the end of each episode a hotline phone number of La Strada, international advocacy organization supporting victims of violence, was provided.
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Investigators with superpowers
Every protagonist has her talent or a superpower of sorts: Inga Dolynska is the head of the unit, embodies intelligence and humane attitude; besides, she is able to grasp the situation as a whole with all details.
Renata Markovych is an experienced crime scene manager and operations officer; she arrests criminals and can appear where she is needed the most.
Ulyana is a hacker finding the necessary information from closed sources.
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Solomiya is a psychologist supporting victims of violence and her colleagues.
A former military officer Sergiy Honcharuk has also joined the unit: he teaches his colleagues self-defense tricks and also tracks down and detains criminals together with Renata.
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The audience already knows The Brave Squad team – in spring, the first episodes of the film were premiered. In the new episodes our superheroines will open up in new ways. What does Inga Dolynska hide, which dark secrets will suddenly surface from her past? Will Renata be able to punish her ex-husband and prove his guilt in court? What will happen to the disobedient Ulyana? How will Solomiya’s life turn out after the terrible car accident? And will Honcharuk remain in the unit?..
By the way, the actresses had to learn a lot for the sake of their roles. For example, Oleksandra Honcharova learned pole dancing: her character Solomiya leads her investigation, gets into Orchid night club and pretends to be a dancer…
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Renata played by Oleksandra Lyuta often fights men and hits every offender back; she is also a good boxer. To be convincing in the shot, Oleksandra had regular sessions with a coach.
Andriy Merzlikin performed all stunts in the series on his own. Once he was serious about kickboxing and even became the Crimea champion in this sport. Now Andriy had to remember everything very fast and get back into shape.
The whole world in FILM.UA Pavilion Seven
Specially for the filming of The Brave Squad, a new unit office with many rooms was built in FILM.UA Pavilion Seven.
It has a reception area and the rooms of Inga, Renata, Solomiya and Ulyana. There is a gym where women practice under Honcharuk’s supervision. Just around the corner, there is an interrogation room, a room for detention, and an observation room with a one-way mirror.
The unit office has special guest apartments where women can hide from their tyrannic husbands for a couple of days.
A morgue was also built in the pavilion where a pathologist performs autopsies and examinations of the bodies. Not far from the morgue, there is… Orchid night club.
Waiting for the premiere
The first 18 episodes of The Brave Squad were broadcast this year on Ukraina TV channel. The series won high rankings and the love of audience – every week, the film kept its leading position in the slot by several audiences.
The premiere of new episodes will take place in November. We are really looking forward to it!
Our congratulations go to everyone who worked on the creation of this timely and in-demand project!
About the film
The domestic violence unit was established in the spirit of reformatting the work of law enforcement. It is headed by police captain Inga Mykolayivna Dolynska who fought for the creation of this unit and developed the foundation of its work. Her right hand is major Renata Markovych, a crime scene manager who cooperated with Interpol for a long time. In each case, Renata uses her experience and forensic science to dig for the truth. Ulyana Bilyak is a programmer of the unit finding information for the investigators which is impossible to quickly get through official channels. Solomiya Didukh is the unit psychologist, sensitive, tactful and honest in her work. However, just like each of the four women, she has her own skeleton in the closet… The brave investigators will have complicated and confusing cases to solve and challenging life stories to go through. Apart from the external enemy, each one of them has to brave her internal one as well, to overcome her pain. And only by helping others they will help themselves.
Directors: Maksym Gulenko, Pavlo Maschenko, Andriy Osmolovsky
DOP: Volodymyr Ostapets
Producers: Viktoria Korogod, Olena Kanishevska, Oksana Tunik, Iryna Kostyuk, Yulia Mischenko
Head screenwriter: Yulia Mischenko
Screenwriting team: Olga Artyukh, Mark Shparber, Antonina Pikhovshek, Oksana Savchenko, Tamara Nikitchyna, Kateryna Pekur, Tetyana Yereskina, Sergiy and Natalya Shevchenko, Inga Balytska, Lana Ivanytsya, Iryna Feofanova.
Cast: Iryna Lanovenko, Oleksandra Lyuta, Darya Petrozhytska, Oleksandra Honcharova, Andriy Merzlikin, Vyacheslav Vasylyuk, Oleksandra Polguy, Vitaliy Derevyanchuk, Oleksandr Norchuk, Maksym Kanyuka, Vladyslav Honcharov, Angelina Stepanenko, and others.
