Bad Roads

Separate stories set along the roads of the Donbas while the war goes on. A headmaster cannot produce his papers at a checkpoint. In the town there are young girls hanging around the soldiers. A woman is taken captive. Another person tries to pay for a chicken she ran over on the road. In every episode who holds the power can change in a moment. Nataliia Vorozhbyt directed the film from her own play, which was staged in London. It screened at Venice Critics' Week in 2020 and took a prize there; it became Ukraine's Oscar submission. The telling gives the war not as a front line but as the breakdown of everyday life. The scenes of violence are hard, and the film does not cut them short.