Canadian Premiere
After being killed by a Russian missile strike, a Ukrainian woman finds herself caught between life and death in the Irish countryside.
Nelly Shylova, Richie Corcoran, Tommy Gaynor
Ireland/Ukraine
2025
In English and Ukrainian with English subtitles
This short is featured in:
Short Forum 7: War at Home
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Credits & Director
Producer
Joe Smith
Screenwriter
Nelly Shylova
Cinematography
Joe Smith, Nelly Shylova
Editor
Nelly Shylova
Original Music
Volodymyr Didenko
Nelly Shylova
Nelly Shylova, born 1990 in Yalta, Ukraine, is a filmmaker, photographer, and multidisciplinary artist based in Ireland. She studies film and photography at the Gorey School of Art (County Wexford, Ireland), and her artistic practice explores themes of forced migration, postcolonial trauma, gender inequality, and bodily memory, connecting personal experience with collective history. Shylova’s debut short film, Self-Preserving Nudity (2026), is a poetic reflection on exile, loss, and survival that blurs the boundary between documentary and fiction.
VIFF Short Forum
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