Maria Ryaboshapka

Set in 1897 to 1922, the film is the story of a fearless rebel who rises from the ashes of caste oppression to take on the mighty British Empire.

A happy-go-lucky teacher finds himself falling in love with a British woman who is teaching English at the same school. He tries to woo her, but given that his grandfather was a freedom fighter, can he convince his father of the match?

At the end of the 19th century, somewhere in the outskirts of the Russian Empire, a doctor administers a lethal overdose of ether to a young woman – the object of his desire. After getting away with his crime, he finds employment in a fortress, where he continues his experiments with ether to manage pain and manipulate human behaviour. Despite his evilness, it is not too late for his soul to be saved from eternal damnation…

Alina is in Kyiv, taking a French lesson online. Outside the sirens are sounding, and she keeps conjugating. On the other side of the screen, in Paris, her teacher checks the time and would rather end the call and go to dinner. As the lesson unfolds, their conversation becomes more than an exercise in vocabulary: for her it is a fragile refuge and a way to stay connected to another person, for him an encounter that quietly unsettles the comfort of his everyday life.