Zona

In the Chernobyl Zone, a young deserter and an elderly woman form an unlikely bond.

Ukraine. After a brutal attack on his unit, Ivan, a young Ukrainian soldier, deserts the front and accidentally crosses into the Belarusian Chernobyl exclusion zone. In an abandoned village he finds shelter with Fenia, a 77-year-old self-settler who lives among memories, rituals and ghosts of the past. At first distrustful of one another, the two slowly form a deep bond. As winter turns into spring and summer, Ivan confronts war trauma, guilt and grief, while Fenia's fragile world begins to fade. In the Zone's eerie silence, their unlikely connection becomes a final chance for tenderness, mourning and human dignity.

Producers' note

From the beginning of our work in film, we have been drawn to cinema that confronts difficult questions while creating emotionally resonant and universal images. Zona is exactly this kind of project: a film deeply rooted in a specific Eastern European reality, yet speaking through themes that are globally understandable – war trauma, loneliness, memory, belonging, and the need for human closeness.
We strongly believe in Bartosz Brzeziński's voice as a filmmaker. His previous work shows a rare ability to transform genre elements into personal, emotionally precise cinema. In Zona, this sensibility meets a story that has both artistic urgency and international potential. The project combines intimate character work with a striking setting and a unique atmosphere shaped by folklore, silence, and the haunted landscape of the Chernobyl zone.
As producers, we see this project as an important debut feature with strong festival prospects and meaningful co-production potential. We are looking for partners who respond to bold auteur cinema and who can help us bring this story to an international audience without compromising its singular artistic vision.

Screenwriters' note

The screenplay emerged from a personal question: Would we be willing to die for our country if war reached us today? Watching the lives of our Ukrainian peers transformed by Russia's invasion led us to explore this dilemma. At the same time, we were drawn to Eastern European folklore, Slavic mythology, and the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone – a landscape shaped by nuclear catastrophe, memory, and haunting silence. These inspirations converged into a story set at the intersection of contemporary war and a place where history still lingers.
The screenplay is loosely inspired by the Belarusian play Stinger by Irina Pismennaya. With the author's permission, we reimagined its premise into an original story, preserving only its emotional seed while transforming the setting, characters, and themes. We introduced elements of folk horror, spectral presences, and the spiritual imagination of Eastern Slavic culture.
Set in 2023, the film follows Ivan, a 25-year-old Ukrainian soldier who deserts the front after the death of his closest companion. In the Zone he meets Fenia, one of the last self-settlers, whose life is marked by guilt, loss, and decades of isolation. Their encounter becomes not a story of redemption, but of fragile human connection.
The screenplay is grounded in extensive research, including Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich, Manual for Survival by Kate Brown, photographic archives, and conversations with Ukrainian soldiers and combat medics. These encounters revealed profound parallels between nuclear catastrophe and war –both create invisible wounds that outlive the event itself.
Zona blends intimate psychological drama with folk horror and the visual language of the modern Western. The film is intended to be performed in Ukrainian and Russian with the Belarusian Polesia dialect, preserving the authenticity of its world. Ultimately, it is a story about trauma, belonging, and the possibility of finding human connection at the edge of history.