Friday     16:00
Municipal Theatre of Marienbad
2024, 11 min, in Ukrainian with English subtitles

Directed, written, designed, and animated by: Anastasiia Falileieva
Music: Petr Marek
Dramaturgy: Lucia Kajánková
Production: Marcela Vratilova, Mira Dittrich
Producers: Alena Vandasová, Martin Vandas (MAUR film, CZ), Juraj Krasnohorský (Artichoke, SK)
Co-producer: Anastasiia Falileieva

“Time has passed, but the feeling that I died in Irpin has never left me.
The short animated film I Died in Irpin reconstructs a real story of survival through a deeply personal and subjective lens. Using the expressive power of animation, it transforms a fragile and intimate narrative into new dimensions of meaning.
On the morning of February 24, my boyfriend and I decided to leave Kyiv and travel to Irpin to stay with his parents. It’s hard for me to recall the chronology of those days—my mind blurs and minimizes the memories, erases them—but what I remember clearly is that things got worse with each passing day. We spent 10 days there, sleeping in a basement, hiding from bombings, completely cut off. I wanted to leave at any cost, but his parents insisted on staying. In the end, we managed to escape through the last corridor just hours before Russian troops entered the city.”

Anastasiia Falileieva (*2000) born in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, is a filmmaker and animator specializing in stop-motion. She studied animation and directing at the Kyiv National I. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University. As one of the few remaining professionals in the Ukrainian stop-motion scene, she brings a unique voice to contemporary animation, blending handcrafted techniques with deeply personal storytelling.
Her early film Until It Turns Black (2018) marked the beginning of a body of work characterized by poetic visuals and emotional resonance. This was followed by Tiger Is Strolling Around (2020) and Papier Mâché (2021), which further developed her distinctive style. From 2022 to 2024, she worked on the series Patron the Dog, inspired by the real-life mine-sniffing dog and national hero.