Serhii Korniienko

Ukraine, 1920s. A gang of enemies of the Soviet government is rampaging in the village. Returning home, wounded 15-year-old Red Army soldier Fedya Panko decides to neutralize the enemy, who, as it turns out, operates not only on the battlefield.

There is a ballad written by Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko called “That Catherine's hut is on the hill...". It is about a rescue of Catherine's lover, whom she saves by posing him as her brother. This story, as a parable, flies throughout Ukraine's history and reconstructs its dramatic and heroic episodes. Every challenge, including the Chernobyl accident, leaves Catherine without her home. But she is stubborn, as many generations of Ukrainians, in rebuilding her house out of pieces. The story is not only about Catherine's redemption, but also about Ukraine's survival throughout the centuries that is reflected in a folk tradition called Toloka.