‘Pamfir’ Helmer Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk Realized His Kyiv Apartment ‘Could Be Bombed Any Day,’ So He Remortgaged It to Fund ‘Something Strange Happened to Me’

Ukrainian director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, known for "Pamfir" and "Silent Flood," has mortgaged his family's Kyiv apartment to help fund his next film, "Something Strange Happened to Me," which he is presenting at Venice's Gap-Financing Market. He said that years of living under the threat of Russian bombardment led him to stop clinging to material possessions and instead put the money towards the film, describing it as "the only way we can make the film." The move reflects the broader financial strain facing Ukrainian filmmakers, who have increasingly had to self-fund projects through personal loans and private sponsors since national funding structures were disrupted by the war.

The new film follows an architecture teacher, Svitlana, restoring her home after Russian de-occupation, whose sessions with a neighbour practising unconventional psychological techniques trigger events that send them back over a century in time. Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk said the project grew out of his interest in low-budget, high-concept filmmaking and the controversial therapy practice of "family constellation," which he first explored during a two-month residency at the Kyiv National Theatre before adapting it into a screenplay blending historical detective fiction, body horror, Greek tragedy and fairytale elements. He plans to shoot the film's past-set sequences on 16mm.