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Eden House

EDEN HOUSE is based on the true story of a teenager named Luka who has landed in a religious drug-rehab center run by Antoni, a self-proclaimed priest. Living under its tyrannical regime of emotional and physical torture, Luka figures out that the only way he can survive is to escape.

  • Adelina Borets
    Director
  • Adelina Borets
    Writer
  • Bogdan Borysenko
    Writer
  • Maciej Ślesicki
    Producer
  • Vlad Romaniuk
    Key Cast
  • Alexander Esmursiev
    Key Cast
  • Ievgen Malukha
    Key Cast
  • Sergey Shadryn
    Key Cast
  • Andrey Popkov
    Key Cast
  • Bogdan Borysenko
    Director of Photography
  • Filip Wojciechowski
    Editor
  • Ivan Krupenikov
    Editor
  • Adelina Borets
    Editor
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Rajski dom
  • Project Type:
    Short, Student
  • Runtime:
    28 minutes 1 second
  • Completion Date:
    June 1, 2021
  • Country of Origin:
    Poland
  • Country of Filming:
    Poland
  • Language:
    Polish
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.39:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - Warsaw Film School
Director Biography - Adelina Borets

Adelina Borets is a director and producer born in Mariupol, in eastern Ukraine. Her documentary debut, THE WORMWOOD STAR (2018), won First Prize and the Audience Award at the 15th EKOFILM International Environmental Film Festival (Poland) and First Prize at the Golden Frames – International Short FIlm Festival (Ukraine). It has also screened at film festivals including the Warsaw Film Festival’s “Best Polish Films of 2018”, the “Youth and Film” Koszalin Festival of Film Debuts, and the New Orleans Film Festival. Borets is the founder and director of STROOM, an organization producing films, music videos, exhibitions, as well as live performance—on topics spanning from the environment to violence and corruption. She is a 2020 graduate in Directing of the Warsaw Film School.

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Director Statement

The story of “Eden House” is based on real-life events that took place about 5 years ago. It is a testimony of one of my friends who was 16 years old at that time, and who one day just
disappeared from our local secondary school. Years have passed and I’ve learned that he was captivated in a religious rehab center, where he was tortured, forced to work over his strengths, and trained to obey the head of the institution.

He was taken as a drug addict and his religious family did not even consider sending him to psychotherapy. “Eden House” it’s a coming-of-age story of a youngster from the industrial environment in Kyiv, where life is hard, but growing up is even harder. As a 23-year-old director, I remember this period in life very clearly, when you realize that your childhood is coming to an end and it’s time to become a grown-up. In my country, the youngsters are caught between two worlds: Eastern traditions passed on by their parents, who mostly value religious conservative traditions; and their idols from Western countries, whose lifestyle they are trying to copy.

My protagonist got trapped between false idols and restrictions of his religion, and he has to find his own way. The rehab center is not helping him but for me, it stands for structures of power implemented in totalitarian countries. The turning point is when the main character Luka realizes that he has to take his life into his own hands, grow up, escape from the trap and choose the freedom to make life choices on his own. This is an important story of both despair and hope, which I want to capture as authentically as I can.