YOU KNOW IT’S GOING TO BE ABOUT WAR
Norway, Ukraine I 33 min
Director: Olha Tsybulska
Producer: John Emil Richardsen
Editor: Ganna Iaroshevych
Production company: Montevideo Tromsø AS
YOU KNOW IT'S GOING TO BE ABOUT WAR is an author's journey through the new reality of war. With the people closest to her, she discusses survivor's guilt, the fragile concept of safety, and the future ahead.
YOU KNOW IT'S GOING TO BE ABOUT WAR is a collective portrait of Ukrainians in wartime. After a few months, people start going back to their regular lives despite the intangible danger of missile strikes hanging over cities, as the need for normality begins to overpower the fear of death. All the characters are connected by their close relationships with the director. Through candid conversations with her friends and family, the director seeks an understanding of how to navigate the new reality, where war becomes a routine without an end in sight. She goes on a journey of celebrating life despite war.
OLHA TSYBULSKA
OLHA was working as a freelance editor for commercial projects but wanted to find different avenues in the industry. That experience has brought her to the Kyiv-based production company Minimal Movie. She has been working as a director’s and producer’s assistant on documentary projects until Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. After the beginning of the invasion, Olha decided to take a step toward directing a documentary short about her personal experience of living in wartime Ukraine.
Director’s statement
I left my home in Kyiv on the morning of February 24th, a few hours after the first rockets hit Ukrainian cities. I was lucky to jump into my friends' car, who were better prepared for the invasion than me. With my chaotically packed bag, I was heading towards the unknown. The only thing I had known for sure is that once this hell was over, our old life as we know it, will have disappeared with it too. I have not been back to Kyiv ever since. My story, just as the story of the people I am talking to in the film, is a cumulative experience of many Ukrainians who continue to build their new life in this new shuttered world, under the reality of war.
JOHN EMIL RICHARDSEN / IMDB
John Emil Richardsen is located in the Arctic city of Tromsø. After doing stage directing in his youth he went on to a film school in the south of Norway.
After a few years in the film and TV business, he moved on to work in marketing for several years before coming back to film in 2015.
Richardsen is mainly directing and writing commercial films, but over the last years, he has moved more over to writing and direction fiction. In January 2022 he had a premiere of his short film The Elephant.
You Know It´s Going To Be About War” is his debut as a documentary producer.
Where are we at?
Production budget: 115.550,00 EUR
Needed for completion: 25,000,00 EUR
Territories available: Worldwide
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Production company profile
Montevideo is a production company in the North of Norway, run by a Norwegian/Norther-Irish duo. After working with commercial production both in Norway and around the world for the last seven years, they decided to go back to their roots and also produce fiction and documentaries. At the festival, they will present their first documentary.