Dokumentarfilm - »Drei Frauen«

Somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains between Ukraine, Slovakia and Poland lies the village of Stuzhytsia, which means "cold place" in Ukrainian. The film tells the stories of three women: the farmer Hanna, the postwoman Maria and the biologist Nelya. In the middle of the Ukrainian Carpathians, they have to cope with social reality and loneliness. The colder the Carpathian winter gets, the more human warmth the film crew finds. In a tiny kitchen, Hanna shares her loneliness with the filmmakers, who remind her of her deceased sons. In the village post office, postwoman Maria has neither stamps nor heating, but customers are warmed with schnapps and songs. Somewhere in the woods and caves, biologist Nelya searches for animal droppings, which she considers a treasure. The film portrays an unknown place in the middle of Europe where people have to decide every day between leaving and staying.

Maksym Melnyk is a Ukrainian documentary filmmaker. Melnyk initially worked as a television journalist for the regional broadcaster of Transcarpathia until he began studying film directing in Bratislava (Slovakia) and then went on to study for a master's degree in documentary film directing at the Konrad Wolf Film University in Potsdam-Babelsberg. He made his debut with his first documentary film "Drei Frauen" at the Dok-Film-Festival in Leipzig in 2022. With "Drei Frauen" he won the audience award, the Golden Dove.

The director Maksym Melnyk will be available for an audience discussion in German and Ukrainian.
Free admission. We ask for donations to Ukraine Hilfe.

FRG 2022, 85 min., OmU (Ukrainian and German with German subtitles)
Director: Maksym Melnyk