Klondike (Клондайк)

July 2014. Expectant parents Irka and Tolik live in the Donetskregion of eastern Ukraine near the Russian border, disputed territory in the early days of the Donbas war. Their nervous anticipation of their first child’s birth is violently disrupted as the vicinal crash of flight MH17 elevates the forbidding tension enveloping their village. The looming wreckage of the downed airliner and an incoming parade of mourners emphasize the surreal trauma of the moment.

As Tolik’s separatist friends expect him to join their efforts, Irka’s brother is enraged by suspicions that the couple has betrayed Ukraine. Irka refuses to be evacuated even as the village gets captured by armed forces, and she tries to make peace between her husband and brother by asking them to repair their bombed house.

“Klondike depicts a vision of the ongoing war in Donbass, war that brooks no compromise in depicting the severe impact of the conflict on the region’s civilians — in particular, the innocent women to whom the film is dedicated. Ukrainian writer-director Maryna Er Gorbach largely assumes the viewpoint of a heavily pregnant farmstead owner as her life and home quite literally fall apart on July 17, 2014, the day a Malaysia Airlines passenger flight was shot down over Donbass, killing nearly 300 people. Irka is determined to stand her ground even as her fellow villagers flee oncoming armed forces. Shot in unbroken, unblinking takes that observe obscene violence and destruction with cold candor.” - Variety