Private Project

Life Begins

The Protagonist is a war veteran who struggles to readjust to civilian life after participating in fierce battles. He finds it difficult to find his place, even at home. After a fight in a pub, he is imprisoned in a military facility and then sent back home, where memories, physical and emotional trauma, and the sounds of war haunt him.

A peaceful home seems alien to him, and people who have not experienced war cause misunderstanding and alienation. The Protagonist attempts to adapt by working on a military video script, but even this work provides no solace. His friends and acquaintances only exacerbate his internal conflict by portraying the war as remote.

A phone conversation with a combat friend, memories of the fallen, constant body pain and anxiety all serve to reveal how difficult it is for a veteran to exist in a peaceful life. In the finale, the Protagonist meets his family at the railway station, but even this meeting leaves a bitter aftertaste. All his emotions are cut short by a scream on the phone as he talks to his wounded friend.

The film ends abruptly, emphasising the incompleteness and difficulty of veterans' return to normal life, which is full of shadows of war.

  • Oleksii Taranenko
    Director
  • Pavlo Beliianskyi
    Writer
  • Andrii Korniienko
    Producer
  • Volodymyr Kravchuk
    Key Cast
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Життя починається
  • Project Type:
    Feature, Short
  • Runtime:
    29 minutes 36 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    February 28, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    45,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Ukraine
  • Country of Filming:
    Ukraine
  • Language:
    Ukrainian
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2,35:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Oleksii Taranenko

Ukrainian film director and screenwriter born in 1976 in Dnipro, Ukraine. He has been working as a director of commercials and films since 2003. In 2013, his documentary “Aftertaste Styling” won a special mention at The Film Skillet Documentary Film Contest (USA). He is the author of several scripts, commercials and features. “I Work at the Cemetery” (2022) is his feature debut as director.

2025 - LIFE BEGINS short film, fiction, director
2024 - FAMILY ALBUM feature film, documentary, editor
2022 - I WORK AT THE CEMETERY, feature film fiction, director
2018 - SCREEN, narrative short film, director, screenwriter, editor;

Awards
2022 - Award Winner - Best Feature Film Munich Film Awards "I work at the cemetery"
2022 - Nomination of Best Feature Film at the Warsaw Film Festival for the film "I work at the cemetery"
2021 - Nomination of Best Feature Film at the Molodist International Film Festival (Ukraine) for the film "I work at the cemetery".
2021 - Nomination of Best Feature Film at the British Independent Film Festival (UK) for the film "I work in the cemetery."
2021 - Nomination of Best Feature Film "World" at the Ferrara Film Festival (Italy) for the film "I work in the cemetery."
2017 - Advertising film LONELINESS Kyiv International Advertising Festival, film category, consumer services section, 3rd place, Ukraine;
2015 - Screenplay for the short film THE RANDOM GUIDE, special mention in the Coronation of the Word competition at the Screenplay Festival, Ukraine;
2013 - AFTERTASTE STYLING documentary, special mention at The Film Skillet documentary competition (USA).

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

When I started working on this film, it seemed to me that it was a story solely about PTSD and the adaptation of a soldier who urgently returns to civilian life. It is a very attentive and calm, almost therapeutic reflection on the military experience of writer Pavlo Belyansky (the screenplay is based on the final chapter of his book "Fight not Retreat"). However, the more we worked on the script, the clearer it became that this is a broader, larger, and very significant story about the world around us, a world that has changed forever, about war and its consequences, and most intriguingly, about the uncertainty of the time we are all living in, about the traumas our society has endured, and the uncertainty of what lies ahead for us.