The Editorial Office

Roman Bondarchuk’s inventive, freewheeling satirical drama that skewers post-truth politics in Ukraine in the days before the Russian invasion.

A young biologist called Yura is looking for an endangered species of marmot on the wild steppes of Southern Ukraine when he witnesses arsonists starting a forest fire. When he takes his photographs to the editorial office of the local newspaper, he quickly realises that no-one is interested in pursuing justice. His worldview is upended by encounters with fake news, electoral fraud and cryptocurrency get rich schemes and all the while, war is looming on the horizon. 

“[An] apparently simple premise… can’t begin to hint at the rugged tapestry of thematic and topical threads that Roman Bondarchuk’s second narrative feature proceeds to weave together, the unique product of both the director’s vision and ambition, and also of the circumstances under which it gestated.” - Catherine Bray, Variety