{"id":32498,"date":"2026-08-08T13:04:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T08:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=32498"},"modified":"2026-08-08T13:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T08:04:07","slug":"an-unusual-ukrainian-war-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=32498","title":{"rendered":"An Unusual Ukrainian War Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tRussia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has prompted a wealth of urgent nonfiction filmmaking documenting the harsh realities of life under siege, but comparatively little dramatic storytelling \u2014 a space that the new German-Ukrainian production \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/i-rarely-wake-up-dreaming\/\" id=\"auto-tag_i-rarely-wake-up-dreaming\" data-tag=\"i-rarely-wake-up-dreaming\">I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming<\/a>\u201d occupies with bold formal imagination and a commitment to illuminating lives neglected in wider views of the conflict. A timely collaboration between German director <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/isabelle-stever\/\" id=\"auto-tag_isabelle-stever\" data-tag=\"isabelle-stever\">Isabelle Stever<\/a> and her wife, Ukrainian screenwriter Anna Melikova, the film is an intimate, bracingly intersectional relationship drama centered on a queer Kyiv couple whose attempts to flee to safety are complicated by local prejudice: a reminder that selective discrimination can still endure within a collectively persecuted population.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tPremiering in the main competition at Locarno, this is a warmer, more humane work than Stever\u2019s last film, the coolly provocative 2022 incest drama \u201cGrand Jet\u00e9.\u201d If that film could travel, even securing U.S. distribution with Altered Innocence, there\u2019s no reason to think \u201cI Rarely Wake Up Dreaming\u201d \u2014 with its topical subject matter and emotional accessibility, plus the imprimatur of producer Tom Tykwer  \u2014 won\u2019t gain wider exposure still. Paris-based outfit Outplay Films, which specializes in LGBTQ-themed titles, picked up the film for international sales shortly  before its Locarno premiere; queer-oriented distributors and programmers will take particular interest in a work that would stand out for its candid depiction of transgender marriage even without its complicating wartime context.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tWhat Stever\u2019s latest shares with \u201cGrand Jet\u00e9\u201d is a crisp aesthetic rigor that some viewers may find distancing despite the immediacy of the drama, though it has ample sensory rewards. The director and DP Volodymyr Usyk (who shot the celebrated 2024 wartime doc \u201cSongs of Slow Burning Earth\u201d) rarely permit us a close, unobstructed view of their principal characters, Olya (Tania Myronyshena) and Oleh (Markus Bright), often shooting them from afar in slivered, reflective surfaces, over another person\u2019s shoulder or through staggered doorways. Actually seeing these lives takes patience and some concentration; in the unforgiving world of the film, many choose not to.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIt opens on a conversation \u2014 viewed through a boxy apartment window at night, and later revisited on the other side of the glass \u2014 that finds Olya and Oleh\u2019s longtime relationship at breaking point. \u201cI entered a heterosexual relationship against my will,\u201d Olya seethes to her partner. \u201cYou promised me you\u2019d stay the same person.\u201d Gradually, their history emerges: They met and got together as women in Kyiv\u2019s small but throbbing queer scene, before Oleh came out as a trans man. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThat hasn\u2019t weakened their bond; indeed, Olya even proposed marriage to him, to the surprise and delight of her conservative suburban family, who take it as given that their new in-law is cisgender. (Children are expected in short order; Olya tends to swerve the subject.) But Oleh\u2019s transition did more or less coincide with the Russian invasion, which has severely hindered his ability to live freely and openly at a time when men are expected to serve their country in the armed forces. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tMedical certification of Oleh\u2019s gender dysphoria cuts little ice with the military, who exercise institutional transphobia while taking him at his word regarding his identity. The couple\u2019s plans to cross the border are thus mired in an absurdist tangle of administrative contradictions, and through the prism of Oleh\u2019s impossible bind \u2014 in the eyes of the law, he\u2019s at once recognized and rejected as the man he\u2019s fought to be \u2014 Melikova\u2019s script thoughtfully addresses how masculinity is defined and confined in the national psyche.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tBoth non-professionals who bring a degree of lived experience to their characterizations, Myronyshena and Bright underplay effectively, communicating through finely expressive gestures and mirrored body language, and bringing an in-the-moment rawness to their frankly intimate, occasionally confrontational dialogue. \u201cI Rarely Wake Up Dreaming\u201d isn\u2019t fashioned as a performance showcase, however: The actors often feel another dynamic element in Stever\u2019s complex mise-en-sc\u00e8ne, sometimes tellingly cramped in Usyk\u2019s tight, stylized compositions, or muted in Andreas Hildebrandt\u2019s hauntingly sparse sound design, which is given no score to contend with. There are passages of bravura technique here: One dazzling tracking shot spans the crowded, kinetic turmoil of the border in wartime, flooded with the red and blue lights of state authorities \u2014 visually redolent of neon-streaked queer club nights from the couple\u2019s recent past, but a whole life away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tA third-act development that again redefines the couple\u2019s place in heteronormative society is somewhat rushed, leaning too heavily into melodrama to be wholly convincing. But it\u2019s moving just the same, underlining the filmmakers\u2019 interest in unorthodox found-family structures, and their foregrounding of minorities whose rights are often the first to be disregarded in times of national crisis. As the conflict in Ukraine trudges on, Stever\u2019s stark, surprising film is a reminder that we\u2019ve barely skimmed the surface of the country\u2019s war stories.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has prompted a wealth of urgent nonfiction filmmaking documenting the harsh realities of life under siege, but comparatively little dramatic storytelling \u2014 a space that the new German-Ukrainian production \u201cI Rarely Wake Up Dreaming\u201d occupies with bold formal imagination and a commitment to illuminating lives neglected in wider views of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/I-Rarely-Wake-Up-Dreaming_1_Copyright-X-Filme-Creative-Pool-GmbH.jpg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}