Ukraine’s Sci-Fi Gem “U Are the Universe” Strikes a Chord With Wartime Audiences

Despite being shot in 2021, U are the Universe, written and directed by Pavlo Ostrikov, has become a sensation in Ukraine. Released in 2025, the film recounts the journey of Andrii Melnyk, a Ukrainian space trucker, who becomes Earth’s last survivor after the planet is destroyed in the year 2070. The film’s unexpected reception surprised its producers. Anna Yatsenko, who produced the film alongside her husband, Volodymyr Yatsenko, said: “We’re truly shocked.”

The film was produced with support from the Ukrainian State Film Agency and was released in cinemas across Ukraine on November 20, 2025, by ForeFilms in collaboration with Belgium. It’s international release happened last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, after its release, many commented on how it emotionally mirrored many Ukrainians' state of mind, who were suddenly hurtled into another dimension after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion.

Parts of the film seem to directly comment on many spectators’ lived experiences, such as men out on an isolated mission or the temptation to succumb to despair.

The film never does, though, and is peppered with moments of casual wit and very localised humour, such as a mention of Khmelnytskyi market, a joke with plays into Ukraine’s self-awareness, as in 2021, “Before the Russian invasion, many people didn’t know much about Ukraine,” says Yatsenko.

For the director, who believes the film resonates across different periods, including the COVID-19 pandemic, U Are the Universe has taken on new meaning. “Now, for all Ukrainians, it is a story about how to live at the end of the world, when your planet, your home, is collapsing,” he says. Asked whether he would have included direct references to the war had the film been made after 2022, Ostrikov points to a line in which the main character mentions his parents’ death in an earthquake. “That is the one thing I would change in the film,” he says. “I would turn that metaphorical reminder of war into a direct one.”

Ostrikov, who is from the Khmelnytskyi region, paralleled the main character’s journey with his own. Reportedly, Ostrikov’s father, a construction worker, had a passion for animation and would make small plastacine figurines at home. Clay models are a key factor in the film, standing as tributes to Ostrikov’s personal history.

The main character, a blue-collar worker, embodies a distinct segment of Ukrainian society, resonating with an audience familiar with the challenges faced by ordinary individuals swept up in global turmoil. In his isolation, and as the title of the film implies, he becomes both a symbol of isolation and connection.

Volodymyr Kravchuk, the film’s lead actor—not to be confused with Ukraine’s first president, Leonid Kravchuk—explains that he has had periods in his life when he explored solitude through spiritual practices, and at other times simply because life took unexpected turns. He once lived alone in the mountains, in a small forest cabin, so the feeling of isolation was something he knew well.

“Back in my university years, we staged a 15-minute play about the Earth exploding,” says Ostrikov, who studied law at National Aviation University (NAU) in Kyiv and practiced as a lawyer for three years before becoming a director.

The play had two actors, and like in U are the Universe, one single location. The small “Student Spring” competition held by his school is essentially the film’s genesis, though the film would end up taking 8 years to produce.

“In 2015, I finished the first draft,” says Ostrikov.

Behind the scenes: The Ukrainian film crew joins the army after the full-scale war

Many things came to disrupt the film’s journey onto screens, including financing, COVID, and the full-scale invasion. Kravchuk and Yatsenko’s husband, Volodymyr, joined the armed forces of Ukraine voluntarily in 2022. According to Yatsenko, “Another actor, Leonid Popadko—whose voice you hear as the robot —our line producer, and many others from our team, all joined the army.”

“Our unit was in the Sumy region when a producer called to say command had approved my leave to finish filming in Kyiv,” says Kravchuk. He remembers, in 2022, when they only had two scenes left to film: “I was supposed to leave the front in two days. Then, while my commander and I were refueling, shelling started. I ran with a jerrycan of fuel, thinking only one thing: let me live long enough to finish the film.”

Yatsenko, who met her husband when she was the development producer at his production company, then founded a company with him, which would become a leader in the “service” advertising market. Ukraine was slowly becoming an increasingly popular location for international commercials, TV series, and films before the full-scale war. The country offered a combination of diverse landscapes, relatively low production costs, and skilled crews.

Yatsenko reveals that, initially, like Ostrikov, she studied as a lawyer, “I felt unfulfilled working from nine to six, just going through the motions. But when I started working in the film industry, even though the hours were longer—around 12 hours a day.”

Creating a Ukrainian-inspired spaceship: The design journey behind the film’s set

The film had a total budget of $800,000, with the majority of the funding coming from the Ukrainian State Film Agency. Ostrikov said US financiers expressed interest in backing the film on the condition that the main character be changed from a man from Khmelnytskyi to an American, he declined. The production design, which was crucial due to the film’s single-location setting, began once the funding was secured. The set was built in the former pavilions of “Ukranimafilm,” a studio specialized in animated films, particularly during the Soviet period.

Vladlen Odudenko, a well-known production designer in Ukraine, worked on the 2019 medieval film Zakhariy Berkut, which won the Golden Dzyga (Ukraine’s Oscar) in 2020. He began our interview by stating: “The main idea was that this spacecraft is built in Ukraine—even if in the future—but with a distinctly Ukrainian mindset.”

Odudenko’s goal was to draw on post-Soviet experience and what had been developed during that time, focusing not on the ship’s exterior shape, but on its internal structure, textures, and the design of specific elements. “Among ourselves, we called this approach retrofuturism.” But, it was still important that “the film would not feel post-Soviet in its overall aesthetic. We did not deliberately reject elements from the 1960s–80s, we reinterpreted them, gave them new meaning,” says Odudenko.

Mindful of how important the set would be for the main actor, Odudenko states that for him, “the set is also an actor—it performs in the frame.” In other space films, he noticed that it was clear that modern productions relied heavily on CGI technologies. This set was different, almost wholly tangebile for the main actor, with minimal use of CGI. “All the interiors needed to be actual sets, the actor could exist in a real spaceship where the actor could touch everything, press buttons, call the robot,” he says.

The team aimed for a distinctly Ukrainian style, inspired by the protagonist’s traits and mentality. “The idea was to create a genuine Ukrainian 'space garbage truck' with an ordinary Ukrainian guy inside it,” says Odudenko. They scoured Ukraine for machinery from the '60s, '70s, and '80s, disassembling and repurposing Soviet-era components found in old warehouses. These elements were seamlessly integrated into the ship’s design, enhancing the film’s authenticity. “It was a very interesting experience; some elements felt as if they had been made specifically for us,” he adds.

Odudenko also found inspiration in long-haul truck driver cabins, with Ukraine’s freight transport sector providing plenty of inspiration—around 130,000 heavy trucks in operation. The cabins, he realized, reveal the trucker’s personality—his habits, preferences, and quirks. “We looked at many references where a truck cabin resembles a kind of personal performance—objects that hold emotional value, cassette players, tapes with favorite music that remind someone of something,” remembers Odudenko. Most importantly, “We realised he would want to make his living space resemble the home he had on Earth,” he says.

This resulted in toys, board games, and vinyl records, faintly visible in the background of the shots. Music, in fact, plays a crucial role in revealing the character’s inner world. Made up of Soviet hits specifically from the 1960s and 1970s, like the Ukrainian singer Diana Petrynenko. More than familiar to most Ukrainians—the music in the film served as a direct link between the audience and the character.

A Ukrainian flag in space: How “U Are the Universe” signals a shift in cinematic and political landscapes

Russia, the first nation to send a human into orbit with Yuri Gagarin, has a rich legacy in space exploration, exemplified by films like Solaris (1972) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Ukraine’s U Are the Universe marks a shift from Russian-centric narratives, standing as a distinctly Ukrainian film that reclaims space as its own.

According to the director, “It is a return of Ukraine to the science fiction genre, which isn’t made very often here,” adding, “It really is a projection of the future in which we want to see a Ukrainian flag in space. We want to explore that endless expanse.”

The film ties closely to Europe, symbolized by a French-speaking character or “voice”. A fitting premonition as today, Europe becomes central to peace talks, with Kyrylo Budanov, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, noting “concrete results” and plans including French and UK troops to deploy post-hypothetical ceasefire.

This aligns with Ukraine’s shift toward Europe since the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, which reflected a broader societal move toward European values. The producer echoed this sentiment: “In our minds, we all feel like part of European society,” emphasizing shared values of freedom and democracy.

Yatsenko concluded, “Ukrainian society is, and always will be, part of Europe, not Russia… I believe this film is a huge achievement for Ukraine.”

Volodymyr Kravchuk on the abrupt transition from actor to soldier

After completing the film, Kravchuk returned to military service. Looking back, he recalls a life that now feels distant. “I was a theater and film actor […]My son was almost two then. I looked at life and what lay ahead with excitement. It felt like I was gaining altitude professionally. It was an interesting period…”

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, when Kravchuk looks back, he says he is “ struck by how childish and careless I was in the face of a threat like a full-scale war, which was already, in effect, climbing through our windows.”

He remembers the early days of mobilization. “People forget now what those lines at enlistment offices looked like. Back then, the draft offices had the luxury of taking some people and turning others away.”

When he was finally accepted, the transition felt abrupt. They told him he would be a machine gunner. “Here’s your unit, here’s your bed,” and when he lay down, he realized he was there, in the military, and reportedly, it calmed him down.

The actor remembers when trips to the “zero line” began, and soldiers stopped returning. The war, the actor says, has permanently altered his understanding of himself. “There’s a temptation to remember your peaceful self and think: the war will end, I’ll rewind and become the same light, cheerful person. That will definitely never happen.”

Support our frontline reporters

We report from the front lines to show the reality of war. Your support helps us stay there and tell the stories that matter.

DONATE NOW