Dmytro Kolyesnikov

Illusion of Fear

Story of a successful businessman, who has to protect his business in difficult conditions. He gets entrapped into the net of law enforcement structures and after arrest the protagonist starts to notice weird things: some of his interlocutors appear to be not real persons, but phantoms, created by his consciousness. Fantomness, dematerialization of things that are obvious for common sense brings the author to the next stage of thinking - that the illusion of fear is also fruit of our imagination.

Happypeople

"Happy People" tells about well-to-do and rich friends faced with an entertainment problem. There is nothing for them to be happy about. The resulting crisis is obvious to all, so the friends agree on the following game: every Wednesday, one player gives the other a task which is to be carried out by any means. The task can be rather strange, absurd, cruel or impracticable. The next week, the two players trade places. The only restriction is that the task should not be life-threatening or result in commiting a crime. The outer world as well as the friends' inner lives change as the weeks go by. Instead of looking for high-level, magnificent entertainment, the friends develop a taste for fantastic attractions – and ulti­mately rediscover joy in life.

Cicuta

Pseudo-documentary style drama about drug addicts by Aleksandr Shapiro.

Car Washers

Kyiv in the nineties, tainted by a serious economic collapse and rising crime. A group of kids boost the family budget by washing cars at a gas station whose proprietors make a living in a rather dodgy way. The story is narrated by the 13-year-old protagonist, who eventually discovers how much this society has affected him.