Another Franko

Another Franko
Directed by	Ighor Vysnevskyi, Vitaliy Malakhov
Written by	Taras Borovok, Dmytro Naumov
Produced by	Dmytro Kravchenko
Cinematography	Andriy Mironyuk, Tetyana Dudnyk
Production company	Ganza Film
Release date	11 September 2021 (2021-09-11) (KFF)
Running time	90 min.
Country	Ukraine
Language	Ukrainian
Budget	₴ 30 million

Another Franko is a Ukrainian film about Petro Franko, son of Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko. The premiere in Ukraine took place on February 8, 2024. A teaser for the film was shown on August 25, 2019, and the official trailer was released on December 26, 2023.

Plot

The film's events unfold in June 1941 at the Franko estate in Lviv. An unexpected guest arrives at the family home — Petro Franko's old friend Andriy Hryshchuk. They stood together at the origins of the scout organization "Plast", competed for the love of the same woman, escaped from a plane engulfed in flames, fled from captivity, and saved children from starvation in Soviet Kharkiv. The friends meet during the height of World War II.

Petro Franko was one of the founders of the "Plast" organization, a pilot, founder of aviation in the Galician Army, a scientist who held 36 scientific patents for inventions, and worked as a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukrainian SSR. He was repressed by the Soviet authorities, deported to Siberia, and died under mysterious circumstances on the way.

"I have a film 'Another Franko' about an absolutely unknown hero of Ukraine — Petro Franko. His wife Olga Franko created the first cookbook. There's a lot that could be listed, but you can't fit all of this into an artistic film. Our task was to make sure that a person who watched it would at least open Wikipedia," — words of the film's actor, Vyacheslav Dovzhenko.[1]

Cast

Actor	Role	Notes
Vyacheslav Dovzhenko	Petro Franko	Portrayed between 43 and 51 years
Roman Kulish	Petro Franko	Portrayed between 23 and 29 years
Akhtem Seitablaiev	Andriy Hryshchuk	Petro's friend and rival
Andriy Fedinchyk	Andriy Hryshchuk	Portrayed in his youth
Nadiya Levchenko	Olga Franko	Franko's wife
Liliya Yuskevych	Olga Franko	Portrayed in her youth
Iryna Kudashova	Asya Franko	Petro Franko's daughter
Maksym Donets	Maksym	NKVD agent
Yana Kovernyk	Vira Franko

Filming

Filming took place in Kyiv in one of the pavilions of the factory "Kuznya on Rybalsky", and in the city of Lviv in Stryiskyi Park and the memorial museum "Franko House". The film's authors consulted with Petro Franko's grandchildren and museum staff. A replica of a World War I "Albatros" model aircraft was built for the film. The aircraft is marked with tail number LVGC-15960, the same tail number that Petro Franko flew with.

"The hardest thing is to play historical figures, because you have to strip all this bronze from their monuments, make them a simple person with simple desires. So that the viewer goes through this journey with you, so that their love, friendship, and parental manifestations resonate with him," — Vyacheslav Dovzhenko about filming the movie.[2]

Music

The film features music by the Ukrainian a cappella formation — "Pikardiiska Tertsiia", called "Rozproshchavsia Strilets". This song is the official soundtrack of the film. The premiere took place in 2020 on Ukrainian Independence Day. The arrangement was done by Volodymyr Yakymets.

Release

The Ukrainian premiere of Another Franko took place on September 11, 2021, in the national competition program of the Khmelnytskyi Film Festival.

Reception

"Detector Media" writes that the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy spent 30 million hryvnias to finance the film but did not make efforts to promote its own product, and without information and educational work, the purpose of this funding disappears. In an article from "Lirum," it is noted that historical cinema is one of the weakest aspects of our modern cinematography. The graphics of the aviation scene were poor quality and at the level of computer games from the early 21st century, the reconstruction of Lviv in the 1930s was at the level of museums, flashbacks regarding national-patriotic education, and theatrical acting. Female roles in the film are very stereotypical and do not evoke deep feelings and experiences. Historical plausibility is at a low level, so for example, the uniform of the Plast members is modern, not from the early 20th century. The chronology of events is incorrect; the rescued Maksym was just a little boy in 1933, but by 1941 he became an officer. Also, Petro Franko's birthday is June 28, and the beginning of the German-Soviet War is June 22, which the viewer learns on the train to the capital of Ukraine.

The scientific research historical project "Local History" in an article dated February 15 titled their article as "Another Franko. A film that neither critics nor creators like." Tickets are selling slowly and mostly in Lviv, and there are many negative reviews on social media. The personality of Ivan Franko's son is not shown completely, some scenes are inappropriate, but this can probably be explained by the artistic interpretation of the film. There are many fictitious moments from Petro's life: a family ring, the beginnings of love for Olga at the Plast camp, because their acquaintance took place at the opening of the monument to Markiyan Shashkevych. Igor Vysnevskyi, the director of this film, criticizes the screenwriters who were involved in the films Swingers and Swingers 2, which according to him were written in a week. Also, according to him, the second director of the film, Vitaliy Malakhov, who died in 2021, refused to shoot. The filming was supposed to last 40 days according to the documents, but it only lasted 20 days.

"I was invited to the premiere, two days before. I refused to go. I saw my film already in the cinema. I bought the ticket myself. Making such films with state funds has become a system, behind it are the same people. The worst thing is that they themselves do not understand how they harm our cinema. To prevent this from happening, we need to change the principle of financing, introduce responsibility, fine. Or at least not give money to a company again if its film failed at the box office. The exception is art house cinema. Here, quality can be judged by awards," — Igor Vysnevskyi.

Ukrainian journalist Igor Kurus, who is also the director of the Ivan Franko International Foundation, about the film:

"I hope that viewers will be interested in the figure of Petro Franko, because he, like his genius father, deserves to be remembered. The film is a wonderful artistic reinterpretation of an extraordinary figure. The idea of the film originated in the foundation. When the initiators of the film, Vitaliy Dokalenko and Dmytro Kravchenko, came to us with a request to show the book of Olga Franko 'The First Ukrainian Practical Kitchen,' the conversation led to the figure of her husband Petro. The artistically interpreted life story was so captivating that we didn't even argue about some factual inaccuracies. It's artistic cinema! It's a pity that Roland Franko didn't get to see the film about his uncle on the big screen. 'Another Franko' is a wonderful film novel where actors tried to convey through their acting an extremely difficult time for Ukraine. And the difficult fate of one of the sons of Ivan Franko. There may be inaccuracies, perhaps stories made up by the authors' collective that don't give some people peace, but the film captivates the viewer from the first to the last minute. So it's worth watching. And leave the research of events and facts from the biography of Petro Franko to historians and Franko scholars."

Awards and nominations

List of awards and nominations
Film festival/Film award	Year	Category	Nominee(s)	Result	Src
Khmelnytskyi Film Festival	2021	Best Acting	Vyacheslav Dovzhenko	Won

Interesting facts

Petro Franko's voice was used in the creation of the film. According to Taras Zen, it was digitized video from the film archive.

"We sent to the creators of this film a video that we managed to digitize from the film photo archive. We managed to digitize two video fragments featuring Petro Franko... We sent it, and the film crew, as we understand, oriented themselves based on this video and used it to prepare for the film shooting," — says a member of the Ukrainian national scout organization — "Plast", Taras Zen.

External links

• Another Franko at IMDb
• Another Franko Archived January 17, 2022, at the Wayback Machine on the website of the production company Ganza Film