Skip to main content
Klondike film image, director Maryna Er Gorbach

Klondike

This event has passed

Canadian Premiere

Maryna Er Gorbach’s film is set in the Donbass region of Ukraine, and its depiction of war has a grim topicality today. The director uses the real-life downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014 as a backdrop for a tale of courage and resistance. Irka (Oxana Cherkashyna) is seven months pregnant and living in the countryside with her partner Tolik (Sergiy Shadrin); as the film opens, they are facing the dilemma of whether or not to flee the area. The desperate, pliant Tolik wants safety above all, while Irka is reluctant to abandon the farm they call home. Caught between Russian separatists on one hand and the expectation of loyalty to Ukraine, the couple tries to balance the urgent, conflicting demands of civil war, and it’s no easy task.

Shot in elaborately choreographed long takes, Klondike is a feat of intricate staging, and Er Gorbach uses unity of space to illustrate the ever-growing divisions among her characters. Tense, haunting, and tragic, this is a truly powerful work of art.

 

Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic, Sundance 2022

Director
Cast

Oxana Cherkashyna, Sergiy Shadrin, Oleg Scherbina, Oleg Shevchuk, Artur Aramyan, Evgenij Efremov

Credits
Country of Origin

Ukraine/Turkey

Year

2022

Language

In Ukrainian, Russian, Chechen, and Dutch with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
18+
100 min
Award Winners Drama Human Rights & Social Justice Women Directors

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

There's Still Tomorrow

Dir. Paola Cortellesi
118 min

A critical and box office sensation in Italy, Paola Cortellesi's triumphant directorial debut is the tale of a Roman housewife in 1946, who stands up against the routine sexist abuse she suffers. Funny, heartbreaking and inspiring.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Housewife of the Year

Dir. Ciarin Cassidy
77 min

This gently mind-blowing doc revisits the glory days of the long-running Irish TV show Housewife of the Year, where women proudly showed off their capacity to keep multiple kiddies fed and clothed, usually with minimal help from their hubbies.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Way, My Way

Dir. Bill Bennett
93 min

All manner of pilgrims flock to France and Spain to walk the 800 km Camino de Santiago. One such is Bill, a stroppy sexagenarian Australian filmmaker who's determined to do the Camino with minimal prep, a dickey leg, and no firm idea why.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Poor Things

Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
142 min

Patricia Gruben wraps up our Film Studies series on the art of screen adaptation with this carnivalesque feminist take on the Frankenstein myth, Tony McNamara and Yorgos Lanthimos's film of Alasdair Gray's novel.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Stand

Dir. Christopher Auchter
95 min

This rousing doc explores a 1985 dispute over logging in the Haida Gwaii. Taking us from canny retrospective commentary to the thick of the action, director Chris Auchter employs animation and a wealth of archival footage to riveting effect.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Sugarcane

Dir. Julian Brave Noisecat & Emily Kassie
107 min

"Deeply impactful", Sugarcane is an important contribution to the ongoing process of Truth & Reconciliation in this country, a compassionate, sensitive account of the investigation into residential school abuse at Williams Lake, BC.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Credits

Producer

Maryna Er Gorbach, Mehmet Bahadir Er, Sviatoslav Bulakovskyi

Screenwriter

Maryna Er Gorbach

Cinematography

Sviatoslav Bulakovskyi

Original Music

Zviad Mgebry

Art Director

Marketa Korinkova-Taplin

Director

Maryna Er Gorbach headshot, Klondike director

Photo by Rafal Nowak

Maryna Er Gorbach

After studying at the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University, Maryna Er Gorbach graduated from Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing in Poland. Since 2017, Gorbach has been a member of the European Film Academy.

Filmography: Black Dogs Barking (2009); Love Me (2013); Omar and Us (2019)