Arte is the latest broadcaster that has entered Simon Lereng Wilmont’s film produced by Monica Hellström of Final Cut for Real. Pubcasters already on board include DR, SVT and YLE. Cinephil is in charge of world sales.

The Distant Barking of Dogs is Wilmont’s first feature length film and fourth documentary produced by Final Cut for Real. His two previous films and IDFA selections Chikara – The Sumo Wrestler's Son (2013) and The Fencing Champion –focused on children living in stable societies, but confronted with difficult situations.

The Distant Barking goes a step further by exploring children’s lives in a war zone and their ability to survive. The main character, Oleg (10) lives in a small village in Eastern Ukraine with his grand-mother Alexandra, who raises him since his mother has died and his father is too ill to care for him. The director has followed him for a year and a half, as he hangs out with his cousin Yarik and friend Kostia and lives under the warm care of Alexandra, just a few kilometres away from the frontline.

Hellström said one of the biggest challenges was finding the main protagonist Oleg. “Simon asked several children if they could say what it felt to be scared and living close to the front line,” recalls the producer. “Oleg stood out as the only child able to reflect on the situation. He said: 'It [being scared] feels like having a cold hand squeezing your heart until it gets really cold…”

Another challenge on an artistic and financial standpoint was working on a film that was not heavily plot-driven. “We’re not focusing on the front line but on the effect of war on civilians” continues Hellström. “When we pitched the story to financiers, we told them we would film the people under constant pressure but it’s something that emerges clearly only much further down the line. When you watch the material you do see that Oleg and his grand-mother have built a kind of bubble to survive.”

For Hellström, the film is ultimately about the miracle of life and people’s ability to survive under any circumstance. ‘The beauty about The Distant Barking is that both Oleg and his grand-mother help each other: Alexandra is very resourceful and somehow shelters him from the war, while Oleg gives her hope, love and a purpose in life.”

The Distant Barking of Dogs was produced by Final Cut for Real, in co-production with Sweden’s Story AB and Finland’s Mouka filmi, with support from the Danish Film Institute, the Swedish Film Institute, the Finnish Film Foundation, AVEK, the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, Creative Europe and Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

The film will be available in two versions: an adult version – the one screening at IDFA- telling the story from Oleg and his grand-mother’s perspective, and a kid’s version focusing on Oleg and his cousin Yarik, mixing material from the adult’s version and completely new scenes. The kid’s version will be edited early 2018.

Final Cut for Real had three other films at IDFA:

  • Dreaming Murakami by Nitesh Anjaan which has its world premiere at the Panorama, 
  • Land of the Free by Camilla Magid, selected for Best of the Fests, 
  • The Act of Killing by Joshua Oppenheimer, screening at the Visual Voice.