Synopsis

Alfyia, a joyful young woman in 1960s Tajikistan, is actively parachuting and studying to become a midwife, when she receives an extraordinary phone call from her granddaughter in 2022. She is worried about her grandmother's safety amid the invasion of Ukraine. In this intergenerational conversation across time and space, the granddaughter tries to restore and rethink family memory and her own ethnic identity, break the endless cycle of collective trauma and reflect on the meaning of human life.

Staff

Producer/Scenario/Character Design Polina PIDDUBNA

BG Design Anna LUTSIUK

Lay Out Yulia KHIVRINA

Sound Danylo OKULOV

Music Ilja GUSSAROV

Editing Jin Ju LEE

*Korean subtitles provided by Bucheon International Animation Festival (BIAF)

Program Note

The artist's pure andsincere approach to animation expression is, precisely because of itssincerity, more objective than any live-action documentary on film. The voicesof a grandmother and granddaughter — each living through the realities of war —speak across the phone line, and with the artist's imagination transcendingtime, they convey a bond imbued with a humanism stronger than any spoken story.Yet because the weight of reality itself sits firmly beneath it all, somethingheavy presses quietly against the chest. The war is not yet over. Through thiswork, born in the midst of it, we are moved to reflect on the meaning of life.

JO Yeseul