The authors of the film claim that they show real events in the city of Bucha and other towns in the Kiev Oblast in February and March 2022. The hero of the film is a citizen of Kazakhstan who managed to save over 200 Ukrainians from the occupied territories. He played his role Cezary Łukaszewicz. Apart from him, famous Ukrainian actors also appeared in the film, including: Vyacheslav Dovzhenko, Serhiy Strelnikov and Daniel Salem.
According to screenwriter and producer Oleksandr Shchur, Ukrainian military intelligence helped produce the film. “They advised us, provided us with photos and video materials, shared texts of intercepted Russian military conversations and intelligence data. We used all this,” Szczur said.
The team led by director Tyunov showed the first trailer of the film “Bucha” in September 2022. It was then reported that the Ukrainian production was scheduled for December-January 2022, and the premiere – for spring 2023. However, this trailer has already been removed from the YouTube platform.
From the very beginning of the film’s creation, there were heated discussions about it. People wondered whether it was time to make a feature film about the events that had recently taken place, and how to show stories from the Kiev Oblast in a truthful way that would not cause traumatic feelings for viewers. There was even discussion about the poster of the film “Bucza”, which shows the house in Borodzianka.
While the debate was ongoing in Ukraine, the authors managed to show their work at private shows in eight American cities: Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, New Jersey, Philadelphia, San Diego and Boston.
In March this year, “Bucza” opened the “Cinema for Victory” documentary film festival under the patronage of the president’s office, which caused outrage in the film community. Attending the show turned out to be almost impossible. Subsequently, all first viewers of “Bucza” were forbidden from revealing the film’s plot.
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