Documentary magazine is excited to debut the official trailer for The Illusion of a Quiet Night, the sophomore feature documentary by Ukrainian director Olga Chernykh. The film will have its world premiere at Visions du Réel (April 17–26) in the Burning Lights Competition.
Chernykh’s previous film, A Picture to Remember—an essayistic archival reflection on three generations of women in her family, displaced from Donbas and haunted by the escalating war—opened IDFA in 2023 and enjoyed a healthy festival run that also included the Sarajevo and GoEast film festivals.
For her next film, Chernykh embarked on assembling a kaleidoscopic portrait that would emphasize simultaneity. Shot over the single night of July 27–28, 2025, the film is composed of footage captured by 40 professional cinematographers and more than 300 people who contributed their own recordings. Weaving together different types of recording devices, the film teleports from frontline combat and hospitals to techno clubs and church processions, presenting a polyphonic, intimate symphony of the country’s summer nights. Over its 70-minute running time, the film traverses every region of Ukraine, including the occupied territories of Donbas and Crimea.
“The idea for the film was developed in collaboration with visual artist Maryna Brodovska, emerging from experiences of nights in war-torn Ukraine and abroad,” Chernykh shares with Documentary. “I became more aware of how fragile and relative concepts like ‘peace,’ ‘safety,’ and ‘comfort’ are—how quickly they shift depending on context and proximity to war.”
As most Russian attacks occur at night, Chernykh also chose the night as “both the setting and a metaphorical expression—a moment of vulnerability, but also a universal symbol of rest. We wanted to capture the true essence of what a night in Ukraine looks and feels like.” The flowing montage—spanning digital cameras, frontline tactical footage, night vision, phones, and GoPros—was shaped by editors Kasia Boniecka and Maryna Maykovska, while its nocturnal mood is carried by the music of vocalist and film composer Maryana Klochko.
For Chernykh, beyond the desire to offer an immediate, immersive experience of the country’s ongoing resistance, her latest is also a film about love, expressed in many forms: for one’s home, for the person beside you, and for the land itself.”
The Illusion of a Quiet Night is a new film from Tabor (with producer Daria Zakharova with executive producer Eugene Rachkovsky; Tabor’s recent credits include Silent Flood and Militantropos), and commissioned by Suspilne Ukraine Broadcast (with producers Anastasiia Zakhilko, Olena Krasavtseva, Natalie Movshovych, and Sergiy Nedzelskyy).
