Zona
In the Chernobyl Zone, a young deserter and an elderly woman form an unlikely bond.
Ukraine, 2023. 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. Samosioły 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 Samosioły, 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. Self-Settlers 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.
Director's note
Samosioły is a story born out of a personal question: would I be ready to die for my country if war broke out at home? That thought stayed with me while watching the fate of young Ukrainians forced to fight. At the same time, I have long been fascinated by Eastern folklore and by the Chernobyl exclusion zone - a unique, isolated space marked by catastrophe, haunted by memory, myth and silence.
For me, the self-settlers of the Zone became a symbol of persistence, attachment to land, but also profound solitude. In this film I wanted to confront two worlds through two characters: Fenia, an elderly woman shaped by Soviet order, ritual and memory, and Ivan, a young soldier damaged by war, cut off from faith, community and meaning. Their relationship forms the emotional core of the film.
I see Samosioły as a borderland film: a drama about human connection, a quasi-western set in a lawless post-Soviet wilderness, and a story haunted by the atmosphere of horror - where ghosts may be real, or may only emerge from trauma and memory. The genre elements are never decorative; they grow directly from the characters and their way of perceiving the world.
Sound and silence are central to the film. Outside the Zone there is noise, speed and overstimulation. Inside it, silence becomes both terror and possibility - a space where one may finally hear oneself. I want the audience to leave the film with a sense of tenderness and unease, asking whether any war can ever justify the cost paid by an individual, and whether closeness to another person may be the only real answer to violence.
Profile
ZIZUFILMS Sp. z o.o. is a Warsaw-based independent production company. Founded by Karol and Konrad Zagórski, the company has rapidly established itself as a reliable partner in navigating both national and international funding structures, recently securing a major production grant from the Polish Film Institute (PISF). ZIZUFILMS focuses on demanding arthouse projects, high-quality author-driven cinema, and international festival tracks. The company is dedicated to discovering bold cinematic voices, supporting fresh perspectives, and executing artistically striking narratives. Combining rigorous production management with a filmmaker-first approach, ZIZUFILMS actively pursues European co-productions, aiming to build strong cross-border alliances and bring compelling, socially relevant Eastern European stories to global audiences.