The Address on the Wall

They say that truth is stranger than fiction and the fate writes the script better than any author. “The Address on the Wall” was finalized only after being altered by Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine. This changed the lives of many European countries and radically destroyed the romantic imagination of what could happen to humanity in the beginning of the twenty-first century. Connecting the Babyn Yar massacre with the current tragedy, the film is a reflection on the past, and, at the same time, evidence of what is happening now…

Director Biography – Serge Krutsenko

Director Statement

What is the civilization worth, along with the mechanisms of its security that cannot instantly stop murder, rape, and torture at the beginning of the 21st century in the centre of Europe? This is what I have been asking myself these days. When I chose the theme of the Babyn Yar tragedy and began shooting this film, I believed that it would be a parable and thoughts on the past in the form of a staged motion picture perfectly narrated by the famous Israeli actor Alex Anski, as well as thoughts about the history against the background of a blooming and beautiful city – the modern and peaceful Kyiv. However, it wasn’t to be. Fate in the truest sense of the meaning changed the form of the film. Because what seemed to be the past that had forever remained in the chronicles and that cannot be repeated in the conditions of the modern civilization has turned out to be relevant. On 24 February 2022, a war came to Kyiv and the events of the past, the invasion of Kyiv by the German troops in 1941, became a reality. Kyiv was preparing to repel the invasion, but this time against the Russian troops. In the first days of the conflict, Russian paratroopers landed onto the outskirts of the city, but they were destroyed. Heavy artillery and missile attacks became an inseparable fragment of everyday life in Kyiv. And I decided that life itself had created a new form of the film, adding gradually small elements to it. And then our troops liberated the suburbs of Kyiv, and the world learned about such a name as Bucha, a small town near Ukraine’s capital which has become a symbol of war crimes and the inhuman attitude of the invaders to civilians. As soon as it became possible, we went to such small towns around Kyiv to collect evidence of the destruction. So, shots from Bucha, Hostomel, Irpin and other towns were included in the film. In those towns, civilians were subjected to inhuman torture by the Russian invaders, and their major territories have been destroyed. Now I can say that the film “The Address On The Wall” is truly a motion picture filmed by fate, with the unlikely director changing the original plot and the point of view at the questions raised. And now I also fully understand that anything which happened in the past, in particular the war, can happen to us at any moment, no matter how meaningless it may seem, when you are about to enjoy a cup of coffee in a picturesque café in the centre of Europe. The past doesn’t go anywhere. It hides inside a person until a certain moment, and then it may unexpectedly show itself and destroy the world around us. This is what I want to talk about with the spectators of the film “The Address On The Wall”.

Serge Krutsenko Director, Producer, Writer Nachum (Sergiy) Slutzker Producer Olena Malikova Producer Dmytro Malikov Producer Valeria (Olga) Taperko Producer Alex Anski Key Cast Serge (Sergiy) Krutsenko Editor Oleksii Liebiediev Camera Oleksandr Naumenko Camera