TORONTO PREMIERE ‘U ARE THE UNIVERSE' OFFERS STAR-CROSSED LOVE IN INTERSTELLAR UKRAINIAN SCI-FI DRAMEDY, DROPS TEASER (EXCLUSIVE)

Not long after he's canned from his job as an intergalactic trucker for the biggest nuclear waste disposal company in Eastern Europe, Ukrainian Everyman Andriy Melnyk is blinded by a flash of light as his clunky cargo ship hurtles across the galaxy. When he comes to, his robot assistant, Maxim, informs him that the Earth has blown up, and Andriy is the only living soul left in the universe. Just a typical day for a cosmonaut in the interstellar gig economy.

Melnyk is the unlikely hero of "U Are the Universe," a sci-fi romantic dramedy that marks the feature directorial debut of Ukraine's Pavlo Ostrikov. Produced by Anna Yatsenko and Volodymyr Yatsenko, whose credits include Valentyn Vasyanovych's Venice prize-winning science-fiction drama "Atlantis," the film world premieres Sept. 7 in the Discovery section of the Toronto Intl. Film Festival. True Colours has picked up international rights to the film.

Here's a first look at an exclusive teaser:

Ostrikov's offbeat debut is a tale of love and loneliness that kicks into motion when Andriy, played by Volodymyr Kravchuk, receives a mysterious message from a Frenchwoman whose abandoned space station is slowly falling toward the rings of Saturn. With only the wise-cracking Maxim to keep him company, the last man in the universe decides to cross the cosmic void to save the galaxy's last woman. "Maybe it's time to do something good," Andriy decides, "at least at the end of the world."

Speaking to Variety on the eve of the film's premiere, Ostrikov says, "Space has always inspired me." Born in a small town in Ukraine, he recalls a childhood awakening "when you realize you live on Earth, and the Earth is flying in space, and nobody knows what space is, and why we are here on this planet."

"We don't know what's behind this - space, the solar system, and so on," he says. "It's surreal that we live our life in an office, and at the same time we are flying through this black, mysterious place."

The director is speaking from Kyiv, where he's had to dash to the office to hop on Zoom after a recent barrage of Russian missiles and Iranian drones wreaked havoc on the Ukrainian power grid. He sits in a featureless, fluorescent-lit room that, oddly enough, bears a striking resemblance to a space capsule drifting high above the stratosphere.

More than two-and-a-half years since the Russian invasion, the director sighs at the latest in a string of disruptions - some relatively minor, others terrifyingly major - to daily life in Ukraine. "It's like a rollercoaster every day," he says. "This is our reality."

"U Are the Universe" was conceived long before the outbreak of the Ukraine war in Feb. 2022, when Ostrikov, while still in university in 2011, was asked to come up with an idea for a short play. He said he was drawn to the possibility of some violent cataclysm destroying the planet, leaving one sole survivor stranded in outer space.

The idea gestated for several years, taking on different forms - at one point, space pirates were involved - before he ultimately wrote a feature-film script in 2015 about loneliness and "the last love in the universe." By 2018, he was in full development mode, pitching the project at Fantasia Fest and Les Arcs, before securing financing in 2020 and going into production the following year.

In the first weeks of 2022, principal photography on "U Are the Universe" had all but wrapped. Then the Russian invasion began.

Both producer Volodymyr Yatsenko and leading man Kravchuk were conscripted to serve in the army, with Kravchuk - a well-known comedic talent in Ukraine - now working as a war correspondent. Meanwhile, French actress Alexia Depicker, in the role of Catherine, was reluctant to travel to Kyiv while the war raged. In the end, her voice was used for scenes where Alexiy and Catherine communicate by intergalactic voicemail; Ukrainian actress Daria Plahtiy stepped in to physically portray the Frenchwoman.

Reflecting on the turmoil of recent years, Ostrikov says, "If I started this movie this year, maybe it would be another story." It's been more than a decade since he first dreamed up his intergalactic romance, and in the years since, "the world changed." But the search for love, he insists, remains timeless and universal, while the coronavirus pandemic reminded us "how important it is to find someone who understands you, who will be with you all the time, and how hard it is to be alone."

The director is already working on the script for his second feature, with a working title "Tragedy," which he describes as a musical dramedy set in post-war Ukraine. A spin on the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, it follows a professor of Greek mythology who's lost his wife and wakes up one day to learn that the gods of ancient Greek myth have returned to the Earth.

It's hard to imagine a small canvas for a story of gods and men, but Ostrikov admits, "‘U Are the Universe' was so difficult to make with CGI with our budget." Working with a Ukrainian VFX team, the film was produced on a budget well shy of $1 million. "To be honest, I want to create a small story in one flat - a couple of actors, that's all. But ‘Tragedy' is an epic story, and I can't hide from that. We have so little budget and such big ambitions."

Like millions of Ukrainians, Ostrikov is unsure what the future will bring, knowing only that he could be called to serve on the frontlines at any moment. With his first feature set to bow in Toronto, however, he's aware a new chapter in his life is about to begin.

"It was so difficult for me to make this movie," he says. "I don't know what it's like to live without it - to let it go."