Ukrainian intelligence services have intercepted thousands of phone calls Russian soldiers made from the battlefield in Ukraine to their families and friends in Russia, painting a stark picture of the cruelty of war in a dizzying emotional tension. Juxtaposed with images of the destruction caused by the invasion and the day-to-day life of the Ukrainian people who resist and rebuild, the voices of the Russian soldiers – ranging from being filled with heroic illusions to complete disappointment and loss of reason, from looting to committing more horrible war crimes, from propaganda to doubt and disillusionment – expose the whole scope of the dehumanizing power of war and imperialist nature of the Russian aggression.
SCREENINGS & AWARDS
World Premiere: Berlin International Film Festival – Forum Section 2024
2024 Thessaloniki IDFF (Greek Premiere)
2024 CPH:DOX (Danish Premiere)
2024 Docville (Belgium Premiere)
2024 Hong Kong IFF (Asian Premiere)
2024 New Directors / New Films (North American Premiere)
2024 ZagrebDox
2024 BAFICI – Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival
2024 Hot Docs (Canadian Premiere)
2024 Crossing Europe (Austrian Premiere)
2024 Ukraine on Film Festival Brussels
2024 Beldocs (Serbian Premiere)
2024 Krakow Film Festival (Polish Premiere)
2024 International Film Festival Innsbruck
2024 Docudays UA (Ukrainian Premiere)
2024 UnderHill International Film Festival
2024 DC/DOX
2024 Art Film Festival
2024 Festival La Rochelle (French Premiere)
2024 Galway Film Fleadh (Irish Premiere)
2024 Ceau Cinema (Romanian Premiere)
2024 Dokufest
2024 Melbourne IFF (Australian Premiere)
2024 Oradea Summer Film
2024 Mimesis DFF
2024 Sarajevo Film Festival
2024 Baltic Sea Docs
2024 International Human Rights Film Festival Albania
2024 HIFF – Love & Anarchy
2024 Ukrainian Film Festival in London
And more: Kino Xenix, Switzerland
Upcoming: Sofia Documental (Sept 28 – Oct 6), Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival (Oct 1-19), Festival do Rio (Oct 3-13), Filmfest Osnabrück (Oct 1-6), Mediterranean Film Festival Široki Brijeg (Oct 8-12), Astra Film Festival (Oct 20-27), CinEast (Oct 3-20), Bogota International FIlm Festival (Oct 10-16), Screening Rights FF (Oct 17-20), Verzio Film Festival (Nov 6-13), IDFA (Nov 14-24)
AWARDS
- Special Mention for Amnesty International Film Award at Berlin International Film Festival 2024
- Special Mention by Ecumenical Jury at Berlin International Film Festival 2024
- Special Mention in Documentary Competition at Hong Kong IFF 2024
- SIGNIS Award at BAFICI 2024
- Best Direction at BAFICI 2024
- Silver Horn for Best Film on Social Issues at Krakow Film Festival 2024
With its distinctive aesthetic approach, we predict Intercepted is a film that will live long in the memory of audiences. Recordings of mobile phone conversations between Russian conscripts and family members create the image of a fractured society. Mothers, sisters and partners become complicit in the banality of evil. Powerful cinematic images of broken landscapes these same soldiers witnessed in Ukraine frame the audio, forming a compelling & original perspective on the present conflict.
Jury Statement, Silver Horn Award for Best Film on Social Issues at Krakow Film Festival 2024
- FIPRESCI Award at Krakow Film Festival 2024
- Best International Documentary Award at Galway Film Fleadh 2024
LUX Audience Award Nominee 2025
PRESS
Reviews: The New York Times, In the Seats, Indiewire, Criterion – The Daily, Variety, The New York Times, Filmmaker Magazine, Unseen Films, The New York Sun, Book and Film Globe, J.B. Spins, Eye for Film, Hammer to Nail, The Film Stage, Novaya Gazeta, FLM, Indie Eye, The Film Verdict, Ubiquarian, International Cinephile Society, Journey into Cinema, Cineuropa, Screen Daily – Acquisition Announcement
Interviews: POV Magazine, Filmmaker Magazine, Voice of America, Voice of America TV, East Journal, Vita, il Manifesto, Business Doc Europe
***
““The movie’s stylistic tension, between images of life being lived (or having been lived), and disembodied voices portending death, connects the dots between ideology and action, between propaganda and bloodshed.” … “it points its microphone unflinchingly at the darkest parts of the human soul, while forcing the viewer to hold the camera and search for the brutality within its images and empty spaces. It makes the audience, and their recognition, a necessary ingredient to portraying the bigger picture.”
Siddhant Adlakha, Indiewire
***
“The terrific Ukrainian documentary is an austere and harrowing chronicle of life, death and indifference.”
Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
***
“Considered in light of Karpovych’s previous dispatches on the war for Al Jazeera’s 24-hour coverage, it’s worth highlighting the cinematic distinction, and most importantly, the visual and pictorial intelligence, of what we see. It chimes with a trend in depictions of wars and atrocities to show them – if that at all – in a deferred, oblique manner: it’s the finger on the trigger, and then the dissipating smoke, with the explosion itself erased.“
David Katz, Cineuropa
***
“Interecepted is a heavy, hair raising watch that brings the terror of war to the viewership without a stain of blood. Executed with technical precision and with carefully selected images to accompany the excerpts of phonecalls, it creates the tension which does not ebb away until the film’s final scene.”
Marina D. Richter, Ubiquarian
***
“This is a powerful evocation of the horrors of war. The stark absences stir the darkest recesses of the human imagination.”
Redmond Bacon, Journey into Cinema
***
“The silences during some of these exchanges speak volumes in a movie that — as these private talks play over images of ruined lives — underscores the horrific intimacy of war. “Intercepted” is yet another crucial eyewitness document of the Russia-Ukraine war, one that makes the personal stakes painfully vivid.”
Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY
Oksana Karpovych
Oksana Karpovych is a Ukrainian-Canadian filmmaker, writer and photographer born in Kyiv. Her first feature documentary Don’t Worry, the Doors Will Open won the New Visions Award at RIDM in 2019 and received a special mention at Hot Docs 2020. In her projects, Karpovych explores the everyday life and oral histories of ordinary people and how state politics intrude into the private sphere, influencing the communities she intimately documents. Karpovych is a Cultural Studies graduate of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine and a Film Production graduate of Concordia University in Montreal.
Filmography
LOST, documentary film, 6’, 2015
TEMPORARY, documentary film, 21’, 2017
DON’T WORRY, THE DOORS WILL OPEN, documentary film, 78′, 2019
CREDITS
Writer & Director Oksana Karpovych
Cinematography Christopher Nunn
Editing Charlotte Tourres
Sound Artem Kosynskyi
Composer NFNR
Sound design Alex Lane
Producers Giacomo Nudi, Rocío B. Fuentes
Co-producers Pauline Tran Van Lieu, Lucie Rego, Darya Bassel, Olha Beskhmelnytsina
Production company Les films Cosmos
Co-production Hutong Productions, MoonMan
PRODUCER’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY
Giacomo Nudi
Rocío B. Fuentes
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Les films Cosmos
Montreal, Canada
info@filmscosmos.com
https://filmscosmos.com/en/
CO-PRODUCTION COMPANY
Hutong Productions
Sainte Radegonde, France
info@hutongproductions.com
https://hutongproductions.com/en/
MoonMan
Kyiv, Ukraine
daryabassel@gmail.com
https://moonman.com.ua/