Ukrainian director Oleh Sentsov has begun pre-production on Kai, his first fiction feature in five years since 2021 drama Rhino.

Filming on Kai is scheduled to take place in Ukraine in the first half of 2027, with the project bringing together producers from Ukraine, Poland, Germany, France and the Czech Republic.

Former political prisoner Sentsov has been serving in the Ukrainian armed forces since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, initially taking part in the defence of Kyiv and later fighting in the Donbas.

During Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive, in which he served as a junior lieutenant, he recorded the footage that became his documentary Real (2024).

Filming on Kai is scheduled to take place in Ukraine in the first half of 2027, with the project bringing together producers from Ukraine, Poland, Germany, France and the Czech Republic.

The drama will be set against the period running from Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity (2013–2014), also known as the Maidan Revolution, and the early years of the Russian-Ukrainian War when Russia occupied Crimea.

At the heart of drama is a family confronting an internal crisis as their country undergoes fundamental change, for an intimate story revisiting a turning point in European history the consequences of which continue to shape lives across the continent.

“My screenplay draws on my own experiences, including raising a son with autism, taking part in the Maidan protests and evacuating civilians from combat zones,” says Sentsov. “It is not strictly autobiographical, but it is deeply personal. At its heart are family relationships and the choices people make when personal upheaval coincides with historic change.”

Ukrainian writer-director Maryna Stepanska has joined the project as co-writer. She wrote and directed Falling (2017), which premiered at Karlovy Vary, and co-wrote Anna Buryachkova’s Forever-Forever (2023), which premiered in Venice’s Orizzonti Extra section.

Filming is planned in regions of Ukraine comparatively less affected by air raid alerts and attacks. The Ukrainian crew will include veterans and serving military personnel, with the production offering a route back into the film industry for those transitioning to civilian life.

Kai is produced by Denis Ivanov and Oleh Sentsov through Ukraine’s Arthouse Traffic and Cry Cinema. Co-producers are Dariusz Jabłoński, Violetta Kamińska and Izabela Wójcik of Apple Film Production in Poland; Heino Deckert of ma.ja.de. fiction in Germany; Šárka Cimbalová and Mike Downey of Marlene Film Production in the Czech Republic; and François Yon and Paul De Beco of France’s Playtime, which is also handling international sales.

The project has secured support from the European Solidarity Fund for Ukrainian Films (ESFUF), Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and the Polish Film Institute, alongside other funders. Development was supported by the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, the Göteborg Film Fund and FILMBOOST, a joint programme of the German Film Academy and NGO Docudays. Kai was presented at the Les Arcs Film Festival’s Co-Production Village in 2022.

Sentsov established his international reputation with Gamer (2011), which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Arrested by Russian occupying authorities in Crimea in 2014, Sentsov spent more than five years in prison before his release in 2019. While imprisoned in Labytnangi, Russia, he worked remotely on Numbers (2020), an adaptation of his own play co-directed with Akhtem Seitablaiev, sold internationally by Latido Films.. The film had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival.

His most recent fiction feature, Rhino (2021), premiered in Venice’s Orizzonti competition and won the Bronze Horse for Best Film at the Stockholm International Film Festival.

It screened at more than 50 international festivals, was taken to market by London-based West End Films and it sold to territories including the United States, France, Spain, Italy, the UK, Scandinavia and the Middle East.

“Gamer was Oleh’s breakout indie feature about a young video gamer in Crimea, which premiered to high praise at the Rotterdam International Film Festival,” says co-producer and former European Film Academy Chair Mike Downey, “while Rhino was gritty crime drama exploring 1990s Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He followed that with Real, striking documentary capturing actual front-line trench warfare in real time. Kai brings Oleh’s work as a film maker much closer to home, drawing very much on his personal experiences in these embattled historically significant times.”

Alongside filmmaking, Sentsov is now a combat battalion commander in the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade “Magura” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Since 2022, he has bee involved in fighting in intense sectors including Bakhmut, Avdiivka, the southern front near Robotyne, and the Kursk incursion, and wounded multiple times in combat.