Summer holidays in a God-forsaken Ukrainian village. Larysa, whose father passed away 40 days ago, falls in love with the handsome criminal Scar. When he moves into the city with its post-Soviet prefab apartment blocks, Larysa is forced to bow to the tradition of this deceptive village idyll and marry Roman in order to start a family. Much like Larysa, her five-year-old cousin Vitka attempts to rebel against the sclerotic structures in the countryside and harbours a secret that could change everyone’s fate.

The world seems hypercharged in this fiction feature debut: hard and brutal in reality, beguilingly beautiful in the dream worlds of Larysa and Vitka. Nikitiuk has managed to create a brilliant and visually stunning fantasy film.

Marysia Nikitiuk graduated at Kyiv Karpenko-Karyi University of Theater, Movie and TV in 2012. Thereafter she worked as a scriptwriter. From 2014 she started to shoot her own films as a director, and made three short films: IN TREES (2014), MANDRAGORA (2014) and RABIES (2016). In the same time, she developed her first feature film WHEN THE TREES FALL. In 2015/2016 she completed the script within the “ScripTeast” training program; the script won the Award for Best Script from Eastern Europe at Cannes International Film Festival 2016. Her first book of novels “Abyss” was published in 2016 and awarded with the “Oles Ulianenko International Literature Award” in the same year. Currently, she develops her second feature film SERAPHYMA.

WHEN THE TREES FALL won the Award for Best Main Actress (Anastasiia Pustovit) at the Odessa Film Festival (Ukraine 2018).