“Honeymoon”, interview with director Zhanna Ozirna and producer Dmytro Sukhanov

At 81th Venice Film Festival FRED Film Radio interviewed director Zhanna Ozirna and producer Dmytro Sukhanov to talk about “Honeymoon”, one of the four films made during the Biennale College Cinema 2024.

Horror through sound

The biggest challenge of “Honeymoon” is to tell the story of the outbreak of the war in Ukraine without ever showing it but relying only on the sound, on the explosion of the bombs. “It was my own creative decision”, says Zhanna Ozirna. “The first reason is not because of low budget, but actually because I want to create this feeling of the evil neighbor next to you. You feel this horror much more and I don’t want to see the faces of the soldier. I just want to create this feeling of something very bad that you cannot avoid”.

The production help of Biennale College Cinema

“Honeymoon” is one of the films made during the Biennale College Cinema 2024. What does it mean for a producer to have this type of support? “Honestly, we have two things that help us a lot”, admits producer Dmytro Sukhanov. “I wouldn’t say micro budget was a problem. First of all, the film and story itself is quite compact for the production and it doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. I think it’s the opposite, because you don’t have bigger effects. You are quite naked and have to barely do something. And another thing: Ukraine is very cost-effective for us. For this money, we can have normal production, normal career. Of course, we will optimize everything, but we will not make any decisions or compromise because of the budget”.

A film inspired by a true story

In “Honeymoon” for almost its entire duration we only see the two main characters on screen, in their home. This aspect of the film resembles a play. “Actually, since this is a real situation – it happened with a friend of my friend – I did an interview with him and his family”, admits director Zhanna Ozirna. “Originally, the story was about the whole family. I just reduced it to the couple. I did a couple of different interviews with the people who survived the occupation, just to try to understand how they behaved, what was their feeling inside of the occupation. And also, some very practical things, kind of how you go to the toilet or how do you get the water or something like that”.

The current situation of Ukrainian cinema

What does it mean to make a film in Ukraine today during the war? “It’s so simple and so big question, because the situation touches industry in all aspects”, says producer Dmytro Sukhanov. “In personal level, there are a lot of people in depression, under psychological pressure. Some of them are mobilized in the army as well. I have on my desktop maybe 15 photographers or people who were already killed from the people who I worked with. It’s a big migration process and even though we have a lot of money, now it’s a question like: ‘Could we make a cruise and all the level how we used to do before the war?’. But money is also a huge problem, because the first couple of years it was totally frozen and redirected to the army, which is totally logical. Now it’s become a lot more frozen, but I think we need to solve internal proper dialogue with institution and state, because it should be some proper strategy of filmmaking readjusted for the current moment and it’s not done yet”.

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