Sceneggiatura, fotografia / Screenplay, Photography: Alina Maksimenko Montaggio / Editing: Feliks Mirosław Mamczur Musica / Music: Vladimir Tarasov Suono / Sound: Sergiy Chegodayev, Joanna Napieralska Produzione / Produced by: Wajda Studio Con il sostegno di / Supported by: Polish Film Institute, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine finds Alina in Irpin, near Kyiv. She is alone, with her leg in a cast after recent surgery. She manages to escape with her cat from a bombed and cut off city in one of the last evacuation groups. She reaches a cottage in a nearby village where her parents are stuck. For the first weeks they try to live normally. Her mother conducts online classes, her father takes care of his cats and the animals in the neighbourhood, Alina records current events with her camera. However, the front is getting closer and closer, and they have to make a decision – to stay or to run away?
“In Limbo tells the story of my family, which suddenly finds itself in the middle of a war and is faced with dramatically difficult decisions. The story, although personal, shows a universal, human struggle with an extreme situation, on the verge of life and death, where there are no simple and painless solutions. The axis of the film are my video notes from the first days of the war, documented in the form of a kind of diary in which I tried to record my own thoughts and emotions.” (A. Maksimenko)
Alina Maksimenko
Painter, film director and DOP, Alina Maksimenko was born in 1974 in Kyiv, where she graduated from the “M. Boichuk” State Academy of Decorative Applied Arts. Additionally, she completed her studies in documentary film directing under the director Serhii Bukovsky and attended the DOK PRO program at Wajda School in Poland. Her feature documentary debut In Limbo premiered at Visions du Réel and it was also selected by European Film Academy to be part of the EFA Documentary Film Selection 2024.
2022 Ptitsa cm / sf doc. 2024 W zawieszeniu (In Limbo) doc.
