Academy Award-winning Latvian producer Matis Kaza, who co-wrote and produced Gints Zylvalodis’ Best Animated Feature-winning film “Flow,” has joined Ukrainian director Filip Sotnichenko’s second film, “Times New Roman,” to participate in the Transylvania Pitch Stop Co-Production Forum at the Transylvania Film Festival this week.
Kaza’s Trickster Pictures will participate in a pan-European co-production to be lead produced by Halina Krivorchuk of Ukraine’s Viatel and Valeria Sotyvets and Sashko Chuvko of Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema. Other co-production partners include Clementina Remeikaite and Laurinas Bareisa of Afterschool (Lithuania), Hans Broich of SuperZoom Film (Germany) and Ineke Smits of GoGoFilm (Netherlands).
Set in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, “Times New Roman” depicts Kiev-based artist Roman, who is on the verge of a midlife crisis, grappling with the mental strain of war and battling alcoholism. When Roman is approached with an ambitious performance art project, an unexpected solution comes to him. It is a trio of reenactments of historic assassinations of exiled Ukrainian politicians in Europe, an artistic expression aimed at reminding the world of Russia’s long and brutal history of interference in Ukrainian affairs. Seduced by the chance to flee Ukraine, Roman embarks on a trip to Europe, but soon discovers that leaving his demons behind is not so easy.
In a director’s statement provided exclusively to Variety, Sotnichenko said his latest film “reflects my own experience of trying to remain an artist during wartime in a country with closed borders but open hearts.” He described it as a “long-form narrative project that blends personal stories, artistic gestures, and political research.”
“‘Times New Roman’ is a reflection of modern-day Ukraine as seen through the eyes of an artist with an inner conflict, torn between staying in or leaving, being useful or being honest, feeling or acting,” the director said. “These are questions that many Ukrainians are facing today, and I want to explore them through the language of film.”
The film is based on the political assassinations of three key leaders of the Ukrainian independence movement. They were killed by Soviet agents while in exile in Europe. Yevhen Konovalets, killed by a bomb in Rotterdam in 1938. In the film, Roman embarks on a road trip to three fateful locations in order to stage a re-enactment of the murder before an unsuspecting public. “Times New Roman” is a collaboration between performer and visual artist Yarema Marashuk and Roman Kimei, who also stars in the film.
As Sotnichenko explains, “This project explores how the personal experiences of modern Ukrainians are intertwined with historical events and how war shapes their intellectual, emotional and artistic lives, even if not directly depicted. This is a slice of Roman’s life: a man navigating a new era, trying to find his place between duty and freedom, home and escape, the personal and the political.”
Sotnichenko’s feature debut, La Paliciada, was a mysterious police procedural that focused on a pivotal moment in Ukraine’s recent history. Variety magazine’s Manuel Betancourt described it as a “disturbing provocation” and said, “There’s an elliptical, almost dreamlike logic to the way Sotnichenko crafts this film that suggests there’s no certainty in what we’re observing. The more you start to wonder, the more disoriented you become. Everything is vague and cross-eyed, but within that haze lies a powerful story about how history is written and its impact on generations that such history cannot express.” Please avoid. ” The film, which premiered in Rotterdam, became Ukraine’s entry into the 2023 best international film Oscar race.
Following the success of the film, which was shot entirely before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2024, “Times New Roman” is being made under even more difficult circumstances. Director Sotnichenko said: “Although my debut film La Parisiada was widely successful, the war in Ukraine has made it extremely difficult to develop films that follow such an unconventional artistic process and raise difficult social and political themes.”
“There are physical challenges, mental challenges and economic challenges,” said producer Sashko Chuvko, part of the Contemporary Ukrainian Film Collective. “All this increases mental stress and mental strain. After four years of war, most of us are now quite exhausted. It is very difficult to work, but we still manage to get by.”
But the production of “Times New Roman” has been given a boost by news that Ukraine’s state film agency plans to announce later this year the results of its first fundraising campaign since Russia’s full-scale invasion, prompting the government to redirect cultural funds to the war effort. This gives local producers a much-needed boost to international co-productions, with Chuvko saying, “We can finally bring something to the table from the Ukrainian side.”
The Transylvania International Airport Film Festival will be held from June 12th to 21st.
