Yushchenko with his wife, Benyuk with his grandson. How the premiere of the new part of the sensational TV series "The Host" took place in Kyiv.

This Sunday, October 13, the movie The Host 2. On His Own Land". The film, which is a continuation of the popular TV series The Host, was filmed during the Great War and tells about the events that took place in the first days of the full-scale invasion.

The premiere of the film in Kyiv was attended by almost the entire film crew, as well as honored guests, including the third president of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko and his wife Kateryna. OBOZ.UA also attended the screening and will tell you all the interesting details.

The Host, which was released in 2021, is a modern adaptation of the play of the same name by Ivan Karpenko-Kary. The main character Terenty Puzyr is a cruel and unprincipled man. He is a dollar millionaire, the owner of a large agricultural holding and the unofficial "master" of the village where he lives. The main thing for him is to increase his wealth, and he is not ashamed of any manipulations.

In the second part, the movie "The Host 2. On His Own Land," we see the same Terentyi Puzyr, who cares only about the interests of his empire. The first thing that comes to his mind when he learns about the full-scale invasion is to bury a huge bucket of money in the yard. And then he and his wife find themselves under occupation. The Russians turn the businessman's agricultural company into their military base, and they try to persuade him to cooperate in order to use him for propaganda. And we see a different Teryentiy Puzyr - a man who is going through dramatic changes. The shady businessman, obsessed with making money, turns into a man who cannot betray his land.

According to the film's director, Taras Tkachenko, he thought about the offer to lead the work on the film for "about three minutes, because the story resonated with him." In an interview with OBOZ.UA, the director admitted that he primarily sought to convey the feelings that each of us experienced in the first days of the invasion: "What was bubbling inside us when we realized that at any moment the right to freedom and even life could be taken away? It seemed as if you were losing your breath. That's what happened to me when, at the beginning of the great war, I visited villages that had survived the occupation-robbed and devastated. I think we managed to convey this mood."

Valentyna Rudenko, a creative producer and one of the film's screenwriters, believes that the figure of Terentyi Puzyry in the film is a collective image of many Ukrainian farmers who rose up to fight the invasion just like the Ukrainian Armed Forces: "We gave everything - equipment, money, organized people. There were cases when we lost everything. They would say: 'There are racists on my tractor brigade, here are the coordinates, blow them up. And there are not one or two such stories. Sometimes I hear people say that feature films are not relevant nowadays, but cinema is also a weapon. And if we don't make films, our neighbors will. And we know how they know how to clog people's minds with propaganda. By the way, our movie shows this very well."

"This kind of content is very important now," adds director Taras Tkachenko, "Remember how many empty series we used to make, like some cops imitating the Russians? And we have to admit that these matrices are still creaking, because it takes courage to break them. But we have to come out of that world and plunge into the difficult present."

According to Bohdan Benyuk, who played the lead role in the film, an artist who gets his hands on such material is lucky. The performer came to the premiere with his daughter and young grandson. During the presentation, the restless kid could be found in almost every corner of the huge cinema hall.

"Right now, my grandson is running around the hall and disturbing us a little bit," says Bohdan Beniuk, "and he may not remember this evening, but I am pleased that he is here with me tonight. When I was looking at the painting, I remembered myself in the first days of the invasion. We were traveling abroad to buy vehicles for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. On one of the trips, somewhere outside Lviv, we saw billboards along the roads: "Don't leave, help your country as much as you can." It was so touching. At the customs office, one of the managers came up to me and said: "You know, terrible things happened here! During one of the days, a lot of women with children and men crossed to the other side, both with and without documents, hiding in boxes - all sorts of people. On that day, 270 thousand Ukrainians left Ukraine. But on the same day, 80 thousand men returned to the territory of Ukraine - migrant workers went to defend the country."

In addition to Bohdan Benyuk, the film features actress Olha Sumska, Viktor Zhdanov (To Catch Kaidash), and Oleh Shulga (Call Sign Bandera, Dovbush). And also not so well-known but very talented young actors - Valentina Sergeeva, Kateryna Alekseeva, Ilya Ponomarenko, Oleksiy Cherevatenko.

Oleksiy Cherevatenko brilliantly played the leader of the Russian invaders who occupy the village. The actor admits that he hesitated for a long time about playing such a character, but the script really touched him, so he gave the go-ahead to shoot.

"I was personally affected by this story," Oleksiy says in a conversation with OBOZ.UA. "On the fourth day of the invasion, the Russians entered the town of Borodyanka, where I live with my family. We were not in our apartment, the invaders caught us at our dacha in Protsevo. Russian soldiers moved into my apartment. They even called me. They realized from my photo that I was an actor, they saw my number on my website. "Good afternoon," they said, "we are your fans, we watched your movies. How are you?" And then he started telling me details, from which I realized that they were at my house... A few days later, our house was completely bombed. On the first day of the invasion, our neighbors, saintly people, took our documents from the house and then ran with them to the basement, hiding from the shelling. The house has not been restored yet. Where have people been living all these years? Everyone has their own story. I'm not going to tell you mine - we will earn and build, although it is not easy for us now."

"When I was offered the role, I accepted, in part, to show the image of a Russian soldier as he really is," continues Oleksiy, "because we are sometimes shown that they are all short-sighted drunks and drug addicts. In reality, this is not always the case, not all of them are stupid assholes. I recently played a similar role and received feedback from the guys at the front: "It's very hard for us here, thank you for this view of the enemy. Let Ukrainians know who we have to fight with here."

The premiere of the film was attended by the head of the village of Ivanivka, Chernihiv region, which survived the occupation. "When you watch films like this, you plunge back into those terrible times," says Shvydka. "It was very difficult for me to watch the actor portraying the image of the main Russian in the film, because the same soldier stood over me with a weapon that was aimed at my children. What do you feel at that moment? You keep your mind cold, but rage and hatred are bursting out from inside. Today I felt it all again. And I also saw the strength of people who, despite the mortal danger, put up a huge resistance to the invaders."

"The community of our village experienced one of the most terrible occupations," Olena continues, "I take everyone who comes to my community to the basement of the school, where our entire village was kept for a month - practically without water, food, or electricity. People were dying of suffocation and torture. But we cannot tell the whole world what the Russians did to us. But the movie can."

The premiere of The Host 2. On His Own Land will premiere on October 13 at 23:00 on 1+1 Ukraine TV channel and on Kyivstar TV movie and TV platform.

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