The Hollywood Reporter has published the trailer for Natalka Vorozhbyt’s ‘Demons’ (‘Bad Roads’). The premiere of the second feature film by the Ukrainian playwright and director will take place on August 13 at the Locarno Film Festival. Produced as a Poland-Ukraine co-production, the film will be screened in the ‘Concorso Cineasti del presente’ (Filmmakers of the Present Competition) section
The events of ‘Demons’ take place shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The protagonist, Nina, played by Ruslana Pysanka, shelters a Russian drifter who calls himself a writer.
‘Hoping to build a new life with him, she gradually discovers his true nature as the mystical landscapes of Ukraine’s Poltava Region where witches live alongside humans and the dead speak to the living begin to reveal his secrets’, the description reads.
The role of Nina was the final one in Ruslana Pysanka’s career; in July 2022, near the end of filming, she passed away at the age of 56. According to the production team, approximately 90% of her scenes had been shot by then, requiring some adjustments to the finale to preserve the director’s vision and honor her memory.
Vorozhbyt says that the story unfolds on three interconnected levels: ‘The first is the relationship between a man and a woman within a traditional society. The second is socio-political, where this relationship becomes a metaphor for the relationship between Russia and Ukraine. The third is the mystical, exploring the connection between the living, the dead, and the otherworld’.
What other Ukrainian films will be shown in Locarno
In addition to ‘Demons’, two other Ukrainian films will compete in different sections of the 2026 Locarno Film Festival.
Isabelle Stead’s ‘I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming’ will be presented in the international competition, while Hlib Feldman’s ‘Another Day in the Metal Box’ will be shown in the short film section. We wrote more about both films in our article.
