U ARE THE UNIVERSE

SYNOPSIS

Future. Ukrainian space trucker Andriy Melnyk transports nuclear waste on the cargo ship to the abandoned Jupiter’s satellite Callisto. During his routine flight, the Earth explodes. Pieces of the planet destroy everything in their path at breakneck speed, but Andriy manages to hide his spaceship behind Callisto. Andriy becomes the last person in the Universe, but after some time, Catherine – a French scientist from a space station near Saturn – gets in touch. They are completely different and far from each other, but every day Andriy and Catherine want to meet each other more and more. Even if it will be their last trip.

AMOUNT OF THE SUPPORT FOR FINALISATION: 74 760 €

Date of the decision : December 11th 2023

Pavlo Ostrikov was born in 1990 in Ukraine. In 2007 Pavlo joined the National Aviation University, which graduated in 2012 with the master’s degree of jurisprudence. Participant and winner of many international film festivals such as Locarno, Tampere, Palm Springs, Black Nights, Brussels, EFA and others. Nominee and member of the European Film Academy, member, and winner of the Ukrainian Film Academy. His 2016 short film Golden Love was nominated for the Ukrainian Golden Dzyga Award, and in 2017 his short Graduation ’97 won the Duke Award for the Best Ukrainian Short at the Odesa IFF. The film was part, that same year, of the official selection to the program “Pardo di domani” of the 70th Locarno IFF. In 2018, the short film Mia Donna was shortlisted for the European Film Awards. U are the universe is his debut feature film.

FESTIVALS

• Toronto IFF 2024: “Discovery” section (world premiere)