The story covers one day, June 21, 1941
The historical drama “Shuttle” directed by Adi Walter has started showing in Ukrainian cinemas. The tape, jointly produced by Ukraine and France, tells the story of the Jewish settlement in the Lviv region.
The plot covers one day on June 21, 1941, on the eve of the Nazi invasion of Ukraine. All events take place in the shtetl, where Mendele arrives. He went to Kyiv to study film directing. But the boy returns to his hometown to kidnap his beloved. His old friend Demyan helps him.
Part of the plot is based on the events of June 1941 in Sokal, where the Germans, having crossed the border, completely destroyed the Jewish community.
The missing letter in the film’s title is an artistic technique that the director was inspired by Georges Perec’s novel “Disappearance”. The team built a town in the Kyiv region especially for filming, 18 buildings, a market square and a Jewish cemetery with stone tombstones were built on the territory of the village of Rovzhi. Six authentic century-old wooden houses from the Zhytomyr and Chernihiv regions were brought to the newly built town.
This limitation of locations creates a feeling of tightness, suffocation, limited space that dominates the frame. In the end, the young heroes want to escape from their hometown.
The black-and-white picture (there are only flashbacks in color) can be blamed for some carelessness and some miscalculations in the script. But in general, the picture tells its story emotionally. In a small town, two worlds collided, which mercilessly destroy its inhabitants.
The main female role was played by Anisia Stasevich, the role of Demyan by Petro Ninevskyi. Mendel was played by the American actor Moshe Lobel (“Dybbuk”), and his father was played by Saul Rubinek, known for the series “The Good Wife”, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “The Amazing Mrs. Maisel”. Adi Walter has made several documentaries. “Shuttle” became his full-length game debut.