'I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming': Trans Ukraine War Drama
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- "I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming" premiered in the main competition at Locarno, directed by Isabelle Stever and co-written by her wife, Ukrainian screenwriter Anna Melikova.
- The film follows Olya (Tania Myronyshena) and Oleh (Markus Bright), a queer Kyiv couple whose plans to flee to safety are complicated by local prejudice — including Oleh's own conservative in-laws, who take him as cisgender.
- Oleh's transition as a trans man coincided with Russia's 2022 invasion, and military conscription rules don't recognize his gender identity, creating what the reviewer calls an "absurdist tangle of administrative contradictions" at the border.
- Paris-based Outplay Films picked up international sales rights shortly before the Locarno premiere; Tom Tykwer is credited as a producer.
- Stever and DP Volodymyr Usyk shoot the couple from afar — through windows, reflective surfaces, and doorways — and the reviewer notes that "in the unforgiving world of the film, many choose not to" look closely at these lives.
- The non-professional cast, Myronyshena and Bright, are credited with bringing "lived experience" to their roles, communicating through "finely expressive gestures and mirrored body language."
- The reviewer calls the third act "somewhat rushed," leaning into melodrama as the couple's place in heteronormative society is redefined.
Why it matters: A queer Ukrainian perspective on the war remains rare in international cinema, and Stever's fragmented, distant compositions — characters glimpsed through windows and doorways — give the film a distinctive formal identity. With Outplay Films handling sales and Tykwer's producing credit, the title is positioned for wider LGBTQ-focused international distribution following Stever's prior 'Grand Jeté.'
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