We cried and laughed. How the star-studded screening of the acclaimed series In Her Car, which will be shown simultaneously by eight world film companies in Ukraine, went in Kyiv

The Zhovten Cinema in Kyiv hosted a pre-premiere screening of In Her Car, which will be shown to viewers on the second anniversary of the Great War. The 10-episode film describes the first days of the full-scale invasion.

The film will be broadcast by STB TV channel (starting from February 25) and simultaneously by eight major European broadcasters, including ZDFneo (Germany), France Télévisions (France), SVT (Sweden), DR (Denmark), SRF (Switzerland), YLE (Finland) and others. In Her Car was produced by Ukrainian filmmakers in co-production with the largest French film studio Gaumont.

The event was attended by TV presenter Masha Efrosynina, singer Zlata Ognievich, actresses Olesia Zhurakivska, Ksenia Mishyna, Iryna Mak, blogger and TV presenter Anatolii Anatolich, TV chef Hector-Jimenez Bravo, TV presenters Hryhoriy Reshetnyk, Nadiia Matveeva, Solomiia Vitvitska, choreographer Yevhen Kot, theater actors Oleksandr Yarema and Oksana Zhdanova, and others.

On February 24, the film's protagonist, a professional psychologist Lydia (actress Anastasiia Karpenko), decides to leave her job for a while and become a driver, transporting people who have been forced to leave their homes in the war zone. Her conversations with her fellow travelers are a kind of psychotherapy. Each episode is a new story. The passengers tell their life stories, and share their experiences and hopes.

In addition to Anastasiia Karpenko, the film also stars other well-known actors, including Viktor Zhdanov (Catching Kaidash), Larysa Rusnak (Mirnyi 21), Ivan Sharan (Pamfir), Ihor Koltovskyi (Bad Roads, I, Nina), Daryna Fedyna and Khrystyna Fedorak (Catching Kaidash), Mykhailo Dziuba (Between Us), and others.

The series was filmed in Ukrainian but was translated into German, French, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, and other languages. One of the episodes featured French actors Carina Beth Orr, Andrian Rob, and Antoine Herbes (who is married to a Ukrainian woman).

"My heroine is a psychologist by profession, but after the invasion, she is engaged in the evacuation of people who are forced to leave their homes because of the war," Anastasiia Karpenko told OBOZ.UA. "We have an amazing and talented screenwriter who also directed the film. Yevhen Tunik wrote real stories from our lives. On the one hand, they are informative and simple, and on the other hand, deep and sincere. Of course, when I played the role, I added something of my own, but everyone will recognize their own story and themselves."

According to Anastasiia Karpenko, while preparing for her role, she had a conversation with a real carrier who was transporting people from the occupied Kyiv region at the beginning of the invasion. The woman recalled that her passengers were so frightened that they could not speak, and sometimes they could not even move. The driver had to talk her way out of a difficult psychological state. The heroine of Anastasiia Karpenko's film In Her Car does the same.

Actress Olena Oleinikova plays Inga, the mistress of Lidiia's husband, in the film. According to the plot, Lidiia agrees to take her abroad to a safe place, and her husband agrees to agree to a divorce in exchange. It turns out that Olena was also a carrier at the beginning of the invasion. "I joined the Volunteer Drivers group," the actress tells OBOZ.UA. "There were a lot of requests, but the drivers often refused to take animals. I would pack my car with four-legged friends and take them to their owners abroad. And then people started to find me on their own."

"It's been half an hour since the screening ended, and I'm still crying. I'm so proud that Ukrainians are making such a great movie!" shared her impressions TV presenter Masha Efrosynina. "Out of everything I've seen about the full-scale war, In Her Car resonates the most with what I feel as a Ukrainian, as a girl from Mariupol, as a daughter whose parents are still under occupation," admitted writer Tetiana Kasian. "As an emotional person, I cried several times and laughed several times," says Iryna Mak, star of the series "To Catch Kaidash".

"Yevhen Tunik, the director of the series, together with his team, shows the life of Ukrainians at the beginning of the war. The stories of Lidiia's passengers, a psychologist who chose to be a carrier, are tragic, frank, heartbreaking, and real. Through the eyes of these people, viewers in many countries will see pain, fear, and despair, but also faith, support, strength, and the desire to live. It's important, thank you," TV presenter Nadiia Matvieieva shared her impressions of the program on social media.

"Great work. A sincere, subtle, emotional, cool idea. I watched it with great interest," said Olesia Zhurakivska, director of the Theater on the Left Bank of the Dnipro. "Yesterday we climbed one more step towards a decent cinematic future for the country. And I hope that in a while I won't be able to hear: "Can I take a picture with you, because my grandmother has watched all the series with you," wrote actress Kseniia Mishyna.