French, Belgian and Ukrainian Filmmakers Teamed up to Shoot Family Fantasy Adventure Polina in Kyiv

WILD TRIBE FILMS (Belgium, France) and FILM.UA (Ukraine) are pleased to announce the beginning of shooting the family adventure-fantasy written and directed by an award-winning French-Belgian director Olias Barco.

POLINA is an adventure fantasy for the whole family. The story is about a young girl - Polina – who sets out on a magical journey in search of the truth about her lost parents. 11-year old Ukrainian actress Polina Pechenenko plays the title role, where she is joined by an international cast, including Saul Rubinek (UNFORGIVEN, TRUE ROMANCE, THE FAMILY MAN), Audrey Marnay (PARIS, THE MONUMENTS MEN, BUNKER PARADISE), Virgile Bramly (INCEPTION, MANDERLAY, POINT BLANK), Wim Willaert (WHEN THE SEA RISES, EX DRUMMER) and Daniel Cohen (LE CHEF, ALL THAT GLITTERS).

The film’s Producers are Olias Barco and Dennis Ivanov (THE TRIBE), Egor Olesov (BATTLE FOR SEVASTOPOL) and Yuriy Prylypko. Olias Barco is a French director based in Brussels whose short film ‘Poubelles’ won the Golden award in the Cannes ‘Critics Week’. Polina’s  Director of Photography, Thierry Arbogast, is noted for his long-time collaboration with French director Luc Besson, having worked as DOP on the films LEON, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, and most recently, LUCY.

It is remarkable that the shooting takes place at the FILM.UA studio in Kyiv, Ukraine, and the studio itself plays a character in the film, with much of the action taking place on a movie set as reimagined in a child’s fantasy.

POLINA will be shot in English, and is intended for a worldwide distribution. Release is scheduled for autumn 2016.

It’s worth mentioning that Ukraine now undergoes huge shifts in film and TV production legislation. Recent crucial changes in political and social life of the country because of the military conflict in its East and difficult relations with Russian film industry have resulted into restructuring of the industry and significant moves towards entering European film community.

#KinoKraina (#КіноКраїна) is an initiative of the largest Ukrainian TV and film production companies united around an incentive scheme for the local film industry. This incentive scheme is implemented in proposed law ‘On the state support of the cinematography in Ukraine’ № 3081-1, registered in the Verhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) on 30 September 2015. The members of #KinoKraina are StarLightMedia, Inter Media Group, Media Group Ukraine, FILM.UA Group, Star Media, Pro TV, Studio Kvartal 95, and Odessa Film Studio. The main goal of  #KinoKraina is to implement rebates for international film production in Ukraine and reformation of film production legislation of the country in general in order to create good coproduction climate in the country.

Ukraine-Belgium-France co-production launched in Ukraine is just a first prove that Ukraine is next potential film making spot on the map of the Europe.