Isabelle Stever’s “I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming” is presented as an intimate drama about a queer couple in Kyiv whose relationship and efforts to escape are disrupted by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The review argues that the film matters because it brings attention to transgender and queer lives that can be overlooked in broader accounts of wartime suffering, while showing that prejudice may persist even among people facing collective persecution.

Written by Ukrainian screenwriter Anna Melikova and directed by her wife Stever, the German-Ukrainian production premiered in Locarno’s main competition and was acquired for international sales by LGBTQ-focused company Outplay Films. It stars Tania Myronyshena as Olya and Markus Bright as Oleh, and uses distant, obstructed framing by cinematographer Volodymyr Usyk to reflect the difficulty of fully seeing its characters’ lives. The film also has producer Tom Tykwer attached, which the review suggests may help it reach a wider audience.