Toloka

(2020)

★ 6.2 IMDb · 5 votes

Genres: History

Year: 2020

Runtime: 110 мин

Country: Ukraine

Director: Mykhailo Illienko

Cast: Ivanna Illienko, Dmytro Linartovych, Богдан Бенюк, Сергей Романюк, Dmytro Rybalevskyi, Олег Примогенов, Василь Кухарський, Myroslav Hai, Костянтин Корецький, Александр Игнатуша

Plot

There is a ballad written by Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko called “That Catherine's hut is on the hill...". It is about a rescue of Catherine's lover, whom she saves by posing him as her brother. This story, as a parable, flies throughout Ukraine's history and reconstructs its dramatic and heroic episodes. Every challenge, including the Chernobyl accident, leaves Catherine without her home. But she is stubborn, as many generations of Ukrainians, in rebuilding her house out of pieces. The story is not only about Catherine's redemption, but also about Ukraine's survival throughout the centuries that is reflected in a folk tradition called Toloka.