Stepne

A village in Ukraine, near the Russian border. The only thing that slightly disturbs the peace there is the occasional death of an elderly person. That is also why Anatoly returns there: to take care of his dying mother. The third important character in STEPNE is the landscape. (...) Vroda combines the story of mother and son with gripping, harrowing, seemingly documentary slices of life of the villagers. Tales about life in the Soviet era with an underlying idea: shared sorrow is half sorrow. STEPNE is a strong piece of slow cinema, wistful and incantatory, about how we need to dissect the past to understand the present. (Film Fest Gent)