In the organizer's words:

SANATORIUM

IE/UA 2025 - 90' - OmeU - Director: Gar O'Rourke

In a dilapidated health resort on the Black Sea, hope becomes the most valuable medicine. The Kuyalnyk sanatorium near Odessa was once a prestigious object of Soviet health care. Today, the plaster is crumbling, but the guests continue to come - fewer than before, but with an even greater longing for healing. They bathe in the salt lake, are treated with black mud and hope for miracles against infertility and illness. While war rages in the near distance, Gar O'Rourke documents a summer full of human resilience. Between humor and melancholy, a portrait emerges of a community that refuses to give up. Hamburg Film Festival

With its incredible and funny protagonists, a brilliant sense of tragicomic timing and a warm-hearted look at human idiosyncrasies, SANATORIUM is above all a profound declaration of love to the Ukrainian people and their unshakeable resilience. CPH:DOX

As part of the STranger Than Fiction documentary film festival!