ONLYHUMAN
Director: Yana Klimova-Yusupova
United Arab Emirates, Russia, 2022, 117 min
Shooting Format:Super 35 sized CMOS
Festival Year:2024
Category:Narrative Feature
Cast:Chulpan Khamatova, Philipp Avdeev
Crew:Writer: Yana Klimova-Yusupova. Producer: Yana Klimova-Yusupova.
Email:Klimovya@gmail.com
Synopsis
Sasha (a 30 year old orphan) and his girlfriend Laura are preparing to move from Russia to Spain. But there is a hidden problem: Sasha merely pretends to be a happy person. When he ultimately finds his mother, who gave him away as a newborn over 30 years ago, he comes to realize that he cannot carry on pretending as if everything was ok. He literally tries to go back in time in order to forgive the person who supposed be his mother.
About the director
Yana Klimova-Yusupova, is a screenwriter and film director. Yana has been in TV, Radio and Film industry since the age of eighteen. Her short films "Love" and "Alive" have won numerous awards in international film festivals. The feature film "OnlyHuman" is Yana's directorial debut.
For her talented work on OnlyHuman, Yana has received the highest recognition (The Best Film Award) from International Human Rights Film Festival Stalker (which has in the past been supported by United Nations, European Union and MacArthur Foundation). Asti International Film Festival in Italian piedmont awarded the film with Best Debut and Youth Jury Award, while Santa Clarita International Film Festival and Shawna Shea Memorial Film Festival have given the film with the Best Foreign Feature awards.
Yana is also involved in charities providing educational support to children in orphanages through a family charity fund “Culture of Growth".
Filmmaker's note
According to Thomson Reuters Foundation, an estimated 8 million children live in orphanages and other institutions worldwide. 3/4 of the children living in orphanages have at least one living parent that is unwilling or unable to care for their child either due to abuse or because of poverty, mental or physical issues.
We want to raise awareness and/or remind our audience of the issue of orphans that exists globally. Through a film hero (an orphan) that does righteous things we try to destroy stereotypes about general perception that orphans are all uneducated, ill and dysfunctional.