At Locarno, they screened a drama about a transgender man whom border guards will not let leave Ukraine: because of his new passport, he is required to join the army

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At Locarno, they screened a drama about a transgender man whom border guards will not let leave Ukraine: because of his new passport, he is required to join the army

It seems there still haven’t been films like this one about the Russian-Ukrainian war. “I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming” by Isabelle Stever and Anna Melikova is a film that, judging by Anton Dolin’s review, consists entirely of uncomfortable questions.

The plot is this. Oleg and Olya are a young couple who have just decided to get married. Oleg’s family still believes they have a daughter, not a son. Olya’s family knows Oleg simply as her boyfriend and does not suspect that he is a trans person. Only their progressive friends from Kyiv’s queer community know the details.

With the start of the full-scale war, the couple relocates to Germany for work, but gets stuck at the border: Oleg is now subject to military service. “We’re not interested in what’s in your pants, but in what’s in your passport,” the border guards tell him sharply.

Here is what Anton writes.

“I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming” walks a dangerous line of “issue-driven” (that is, opportunistic) cinema, but contradicts it in every way, breaking unspoken conventions and audience expectations. A set of seemingly tried-and-true and in-demand themes comes together in far too unusual a combination. Representatives of minorities fall out of the heroic patriotic narrative: those around them see them almost as renegades and outcasts. On the other hand, the established image of stoic Ukraine resisting Russian aggression is daringly made more complex.

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Meduza

“I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming” is a fearless film about a couple who cannot leave Ukraine: one of the partners, a transgender man…

The German-Ukrainian drama “I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming” by Isabelle Stever and Anna Melikova was screened at the Locarno International Film Festival (the language of the film is Ukrainian). In the story, a young couple, Oleg and Olya, try to leave Ukraine for Germany at the very beginning of the war — …