Sci-fi film shot on ground during invasion of Ukraine to premiere at Scottish festival

Funding was in place and he had a set, costumes and a cast ready for the second phase of shooting sci-fi film U Are the Universe, which he had been planning for more than ten years. Then Vladimir Putin invaded his home country of Ukraine.

“It made things a little bit difficult,” says Mr Ostrikov, who is to premier U Are the Universe at the Glasgow Film Festival next month.

Even before the war, the project had faced its challenges. The first producer hired to work on the film died in 2017, before filming began. After a couple of failed starts to acquire funding, money became available and in 2021, Mr Ostrikov and his crew started building the set and casting the parts.

The initial filming took place in November 2021, with the second phase due to begin in March 2022. War broke out on February 20, 2022.

“It was very complicated,” Mr Ostrikov says. “After the invasion began, it was a complete mess. We had to forget about it for months, then in the summer of 2022, we decided we would somehow finish this project and gather the old crew.”

However, there were more problems.

Many members of his original crew and cast, including leading actor Volodymyr Kravchuck, had been called up to serve in the Ukrainian army and could only film during sporadic leave in Kyiv. Intermittent power cuts and bombing raids disrupted shoots.

“It was hard to gather everyone, but we tried,” Mr Ostrikov says. “We had thought the second phase of shooting would take us a month or so. During the war, it ended up taking two years.”

Although the film set was not directly hit by Russian missiles, there were regular bombing raids forcing production to be abandoned.

“There were random explosions,” he says. “We didn’t know what would happen in a minute, or tomorrow. It was a nerve-wracking process.”

For parts of the filming, actors were suspended above the ground on wires to simulate zero gravity, which posed problems when an air raid siren went off.

“We tried to shoot zero gravity shots, but when there were air raid alarms, nobody knew what to do,” says Mr Ostrikov. “You need time to get down from the wire [to get to safety in a shelter]. It was a really stressful period.”

Meanwhile, his lead female actress, Alexia Depicker, who is French, was nervous to return to Ukraine to continue filming the part of Katherine amid indiscriminate bombing raids and regular power blackouts.

Mr Ostrikov was forced to cast another actress in the role, which was made possible by the fact that Ms Depicker had previously been filmed entirely wearing a space suit, with her face not visible.

While Ms Depicker’s voice was dubbed in using a French-speaking Belgian actress, it was a Ukrainian star, Daria Plakhity, who stepped in as a body double to film the final scenes, despite having initially fled to England after the war broke out.

While the majority of the scenes feature Ms Depicker, when the female astronaut’s face is eventually revealed in the film’s final scenes, it is that of Ms Plakhity.

“Within a couple of days, she was back in Kyiv, on the set,” Mr Ostrikov says. “When Ukrainian audiences see it, they will recognise her as Daria Plakhity, as she is really quite famous in Ukraine. But for foreign audiences, it will not matter.”

The idea for the unusual plot came to Mr Ostrikov in 2011, when he was a law student, dabbling in scriptwriting in his spare time.

It tells the story of a lone astronaut abandoned in space, who is seeking connection after being left with no home to return to after the destruction of Earth.

“I came up with the idea of what would happen if someone was alone in space when the Earth exploded,” he says.

Initially a short play, performed at a student film festival, momentum for the project snowballed. Mr Ostrikov has also previously made six short films, with one, Graduation 97, receiving a nomination in the European Film Awards and shown at Locarno Film Festival.

“When I became a filmmaker in 2015, I wrote a first draft of the script of U Are the Universe and this was the start of the pre-production,” he says.

“Now, finally, the film is finished and I am happy I can share this story with an audience. I know that the audience won’t realise the obstacles and challenges we had [in making it].”

Mr Ostrikov cannot attend the premiere in Glasgow due to strict rules which prohibit Ukrainian men from leaving the country in case they are called up to fight.

“All healthy men have to be in Ukraine without specific permission to go abroad and it is difficult,” he says. “I have never been to Scotland and now it is my dream. I have only seen it in the movies. I was so close to being there at the film festival. Maybe I will be there in the future.”

Against the political backdrop, the film’s story has taken on a new resonance, not only for the audience, but for Mr Ostrikov himself.

“This is why I like cinema, because stories can change with the world and with society,” he says. “Now it’s a journey, not just between two lonely people, but it is more than that.

“Somebody told me that they think the main character is like Ukraine, which wants to be a part of Europe - and then in the final scenes, Ukraine is with Europe, but it dies, like the main character.

“The explosion at the beginning is a reminder for all people that we live in a tiny place in space and we need to think about that and protect our world. Without it, we are just small creatures in a big space.”

U Are the Universe will be screened as part of the Glasgow Film Festival on March 4 and 5.