True Colours Picks Up Toronto-Bound ‘U Are the Universe’

Rome-based sales company True Colours has picked up the Ukrainian sci-fi dramedy “U Are the Universe,” written and directed by Pavlo Ostrikov, which will have its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in the Discovery section.

“U Are the Universe” centers on Ukrainian space trucker Andriy Melnyk. After Earth explodes, he thinks he is the last person in the universe until he receives a call from Catherine, a French woman on a distant space station. Despite the obstacles, Andriy decides to find her.

In a statement, Ostrikov said: “‘U Are the Universe’ is a story about the last love in the universe. In each of my films, I look for love, because it is the highest human value. The best thing in the whole universe. It can be painful, but usually brings great joy.

“It is important for me to tell this story because I see myself in the main character. I fear that I can give up on my dreams and stay alone with my problems. This story reminds me of how important it is to find someone who understands you even if you need to fly across the galaxy! Especially in these dark times.”

Gaetano Maiorino, managing director and head of acquisitions at True Colours, said: “We are very proud to represent ‘U Are the Universe’ and join the producers and the director on this journey. Pavlo Ostrikov has accomplished an outstanding debut feature, and we can’t wait to introduce this unique and emotional film to our distributors.”

Yatsenko added: “Passion is the fuel for making films. We worked on our film for seven years. It is an impossible task to do it without the faith that this film has to be made. We are happy that we felt this passion in the team of True Colours.”

The film is produced by Ukraine’s Volodymyr Yatsenko and Anna Yatsenko of Forefilms. Volodymyr Yatsenko produced the films of Valentyn Vasyanovych, who had “Atlantis” and “Reflection” in Venice. The co-producers are Anton Iffland-Stettner and Eva Kuperman for Belgium’s Stenola.

The cast includes Volodymyr Kravchuk, Leonid Popadko, Daria Plahtiy, Alexia Depicker and Maksym Maksymiuk.