Cry, my river
That sip of water, which you’ve just taken, contains dinosaurs’ urine. Shocking content? No. A rock-solid truth. Impressive, isn’t it? First, we scrunch our faces in disgust, but then we pause to think: if even such an ancient creature is here in our present day, then what are the consequences of our own life activity and how are they present in everything we consume? Everything we poor out and throw out into the water or when we relieve ourselves – all that remains in the water. The water doesn’t run to another planet! That water cycle, which we’ve known since school years, is circulating in our blood too. Thus, everything we dump returns to our blood, our lymph, our bladder, our life. We are all connected by this! Once every person on the planet reaches this conclusion, our life will change and we’ll come back to metaphorical Eden, from which we were banished because of thirst for knowledge.
If a river could speak, it would probably say: «I’m sick of your negligence of a self-proclaimed «lord of nature». You are actually helpless! Fear turns you against one another when the weather forecast mentions a tsunami. This calamity has long been in your heads! What else explains the fact that you’re cutting down forests on slopes, which can deter a flood, and draining swamps, which can retain water and regulate climate, and then dying by thousands because of the impact of floods and droughts?»
However, the water won’t say so as it was created long before human, so it will tolerate it for the sake of other creatures. The water has much more of them than there are ambitious humans on land. For now.
When a child draws the Earth, they draw a blue sphere because it is covered with water. This planet is a territory of water! And considering the eternity, we have lost our fins not that long ago.
Today, when we’re draining swamps or destroying lands adjacent to rivers, we’re committing a planet-scale crime! Dinosaurs didn’t know about global warming, but we, who are equipped with the latest inventions and higher IQ, – do know about it! Or not?
Of all people, only a pregnant woman can hear the water’s voice because she has a certain reservoir with water inside her – sort of a lake, where a future person is developing.
A small river poisoned by human once said to a pregnant woman: “Save me!”
So, the woman takes actions. For her child’s future.
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Olesia Morhunets-IsaienkoDirector
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Olesia Morhunets-IsaienkoWriter
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Olena YakovenkoProducer
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Project Type:Documentary, Television
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Runtime:1 hour 20 minutes
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Completion Date:February 20, 2022
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Production Budget:70,000 USD
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Country of Origin:Ukraine
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Country of Filming:Ukraine
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Language:Russian, Ukrainian
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Shooting Format:FHD
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
DIRECTOR
Olesia Morhunets-Isaienko
Born in 1984, Ukraine.
Graduate of the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University (2008).
Olesia’s graduation film project MOLFAR won the jury award at the film festival New Cinema. XXI Century held in Moscow.
2014 VIOLONCELLO, narrative short film
Lviv International Short Film Festival Wiz-Art (Ukraine)
Two Riversides Film and Art Festival (Poland)
Jecheon Intl Music & Film Festival (South Korea)
Golden Apricot International Film Festival (Armenia)
Batumi International Art-House Film Festival (Georgia)
Samawa International Film Festival (Iraq)
2014 Won Ukrainian President’s grant for developing screenplay for documentary project Music of Monocle dedicated to life and creative legacy of cinematographer Danylo Demutskyi
RECENT FILMS
2018 THE TALE OF MONEY, fairy tale, fantasy, 100 min.
India Cine Film Festival (India)
Tripoli Film Festival (Lebanon)
Kaniv International Film Festival (Ukraine)
Zaporizhzhia International Film Festival – ZIFF (Ukraine)
2019 THE BORDERLINE. HRUBIESZOW OPERATION, documentary, 52 min.
Dream City - Rivne International Film Festival (Ukraine)
2021 DEPORTATION 44-46, documentary, 75 min.
Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival (Ukraine)
2021 CAROL OF THE BELLS, drama, 122 min.
2022 CRY, MY RIVER, feature documentary (production)
DOP
Eugeniy Kirey
2016 THE MOLOTOV COCKTAIL, drama, 105 mun., dir. Pavel Kildau, Evgeniy Skisov
2018 THE TALE OF MONEY, fairy tale, fantasy, 100 min., dir. Olesia Morhunets-Isaienko
India Cine Film Festival (India)
Tripoli Film Festival (Lebanon)
Kaniv International Film Festival (Ukraine)
Zaporizhzhia International Film Festival – ZIFF (Ukraine)
2019 THE BORDERLINE. HRUBIESZOW OPERATION, documentary, 52 min., dir. Olesia Morhunets-Isaienko
Dream City - Rivne International Film Festival (Ukraine)
2021 DEPORTATION 44-46, documentary, 75 min., dir. Olesia Morhunets-Isaienko
Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival (Ukraine)
2021 CAROL OF THE BELLS, drama, 122 min., dir. Olesia Morhunets-Isaienko
PRODUCER
Olena Yakovenko
Born in 1984, Ukraine.
Graduate of the National Aviation University, Kyiv.
In 2012-2017 worked as project coordinator and line producer at Dovzhenko National Film Studio.
FILMOGRAPHY AS A PRODUCER
2017 THE SECRET DIARY OF SYMON PETLIURA, drama, history, biopic, 129 min., dir. Oles Yanchuk
2019 THE BORDERLINE. HRUBIESZOW OPERATION, documentary, 52 min., dir. Olesia Morhunets-Isaienko
Dream City - Rivne International Film Festival (Ukraine)
2021 DEPORTATION 44-46, documentary, 75 min., dir. Olesia Morhunets-Isaienko
Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival (Ukraine)
Olesia Morhunets-Isaienko Production
ap. 271, 3, Pavlo Tychyna Avenue, Kyiv, Ukraine, 02152
mediaolesya@gmail.com
+380 67 842 03 87
I came up with the idea of making the project CRY, MY RIVER 4 years ago when the Oster River I grew up on was poisoned. I saw thousands of living creatures – fish, cancers, dragonflies – dying. I was pregnant at the time, which made me understand a sense of loss even deeper. I decided that I have to do something for my future child and other children. That’s how I had an idea to create CRY, MY RIVER.
This is an environmental movie, which is meant to get a message across to people about the importance of each small river, water reservoir, and conservation of water resources. For this reason, the movie has to demonstrate the beauty of Ukraine’s river system and its terrible condition at the same time. The movie will be filmed from the air (a drone), on the water, and underwater to enlighten every aspect of the life of rivers, their dwellers, and vegetation. We also have to shoot deserts, which remain at the places of lost rivers and drained swamps. Probably we’ll manage to shoot a river at the time of poisoning (by a factory or pesticides) to demonstrate thousands of creatures dying.
To combine all parts of the movie, there will be a nature study and art class with a girl, where a teacher will talk to her about river problems and then portray the problem on paper. The drawing goes into animation and then into real footage of rivers and nature. The teacher will continue talking about rivers voice-over. There will be a fish tank on the girl’s table with a growing fish. We’re planning to shoot the class for three months. The fish will grow in this period and the girl will release it into a river at the end of the movie.
In my opinion, during the pandemic, the story with the girl and the fish will be relevant and symbolic. It’s important to make the voice-over story heartfelt and rich in comparative facts as is done in Jacques Perrin’s movie called «Oceans». Maybe we’ll use legends about rivers from different regions or folk songs about rivers, which are many in Ukraine. This work is challenging because of vague statistics, but we’ll involve the best environmentalists and the State Agency of Water Resources of Ukraine. I’ve also checked on the possibility to cooperate with World Wildlife Fund (WWF). I believe that this project is extremely important at this precise point in time because the pandemic has made the world see everything in a different light and assess how important it is for a human to be close to nature.
