HOW IS KATIA?

Anna (Anastasiia Karpenko) is a paramedic and a single mother. She has just taken out a mortgage on the flat where she wants to start a better life with her ten-year-old daughter Katia. Then Katia is hit by a car. At the wheel was the daughter of a wealthy politician, and what begins as legal proceedings peters out in a justice system that knows money and connections. Anna fights for justice, loses – and slides into a moral crisis in which the question of retribution shifts her own limits. “How Is Katia?” by Christina Tynkevych (Ukraine, 2022) begins as the psychological drama of a woman whose plans fall apart, and becomes a study of power and corruption in post-Soviet Ukraine.

Christina Tynkevych, who grew up in Kyiv, tells her debut feature in layers: the case itself, the courthouse corridors, the corruption are only the surface plot. Beneath it lies the question of whether redemption is possible after an act of revenge, and a mother’s declaration of love for her child that the film never lets turn sentimental. It premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2022, where Anastasiia Karpenko was named best actress and the film received a special jury prize. “How Is Katia?” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2022.

Shown at the 2022 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2022 · Film Archive