Iryna Tsilyk

After spending months as a prisoner in Donbas, Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance expert Lilia returns home to her family. But the trauma of captivity continues to torment her and surface in dreamlike ways. Something growing deep within Lilia will not allow her to forget, yet she refuses to identify as a victim and will fight to liberate herself.

Single mother Anna and her four children live in the front-line war zone of Donbas, Ukraine. While the outside world is made up of bombings and chaos, the family is managing to keep their home a safe haven, full of life and full of light. Every member of the family has a passion for cinema, motivating them to shoot a film inspired by their own life during a time of war. The creative process raises the question of what kind of power the magical world of cinema could have during times of disaster. How to picture war through fiction? For Anna and the children, transforming trauma into a work of art is the ultimate way to stay human.

Selling the homestead can be painflully difficult. The hero is forced to confront the past when she tries to complete the sale of her grandfather’s house. In the place of her childhood she finds some answers to questions about life.

1917, the Crimea. Fanny Kaplan is blind and out of prison. She starts an affair with her doctor, Dmitriy Ilyich Ulyanov. which ends unexpectedly when she runs into her first lover: the terrorist who she went to prison for and who is now in the Russian secret police. Soon after, she is accused of an assassination attempt on Dimitry's brother: Vladimir Ulyanov Lenin.

A story about relationships between children and adults broken by shaky 1990s in Ukraine. The boy Tymophii befriends a weird man named Felix. He's the veteran of Afghan war, he has PTSD and he loves music.

This a playful film bringing us back to childhood, where everything started. It portraits seven girls who have grown up and who now "rock". They won't be talking about success, but they are the ones who know the rules of the game, and who also know how to violate them correctly. The film is a collective portrait of seven outstanding women in modern Ukrainian culture: writer Sofia Adrukhovych, cultural journalist Vira Baldyniuk, conductor Oksana Lyniv, artist Alina Kleytman, theatre director Tamara Trunova, cultural manager Yulia Fediv and film director Iryna Tsilyk.

When the path to safety has been destroyed and you’re forced to abandon your life because the enemy is at the gates, all that’s left to do, is save your home in your heart.

A 2017 portrait of a paramedic Tyra working on the frontline near Svitlodarsk. There was a well-known road there that was called the road of life: the wounded were taken to the hospital in Bakhmut. Part of the “Invisible Battalion“ almanac.

Military actions have been ongoing in the East of Ukraine for 3 years now. From the first days of war in different hot military action zones women are part of the actions and perform military tasks. However, society still retains an ambiguous, stereotypical attitude towards women in the army...

Iryna Tsilyk: “Red Zone is an animated documentary film essay in which I attempt to reflect on the question of what it means to be a woman in times of war. The Red Zone is a dangerous area on the frontline where hostilities take place. However, it is also a place of insecurity for those who live in the shadow of a constant threat. We are a generation of people with emergency backpacks on our shoulders. As a modern woman, the wife of a soldier, a mother, a filmmaker, a poet, a friend to many militaries, and a great-granddaughter of those who suffered in other wars and Stalinist prisoner camps, I have something to say about the feeling of insecurity“.

No description available.

A short film for “The Invisible Battalion“ film almanac.