Home Match follows one crucial year in the life of Alina Shilova, a young Ukrainian woman born and raised in the poor suburbs of Kiev, and torn between playing football and looking after her family.
Alina’s life has always been based on playing football, and she was considered for the Ukrainian national football team. Her coach knows she is talented but Alina is failing to live up to her potential. Often her mind is on other things – her mother has long been unable to look after her young brother and sister. After tragedy strikes the family, and with no alternative, Alina becomes the main caregiver for her siblings, responsible for paying the bills and getting them ready for an important new school year.
With football having to take a back seat, will Alina give up on her dream forever?
Home Match is commissioned by the Guardian in collaboration with The Filmmaker Fund.
Film-maker’s portrait: Alisa Kovalenko
Alisa Kovalenko is a Ukrainian documentary director. She released her debut full-length documentary Sister Zo in 2014, about the revolutionary events which shook Ukraine three years ago. The film brought her from the barricades of Maidan to the toughest frontline of the war in eastern Ukraine. The second full-length documentary resulting from this work, Alisa in Warland, was included in the First Appearance competition at the IDFA festival in Amsterdam and has been selected for over 50 festivals worldwide and received two awards.
Ukraine’s women
The Guardian has covered women’s stories in Ukraine from many angles, from those fighting in war to those battling for deeper human rights. We’ve also compared the situation for women in Ukraine with other post-Soviet countries.
More broadly in Ukraine, we recently produced a film on far-right training camps for children, have continued to report on developments in Crimea, and have looked at developments in civil society through new initiatives in volunteering.
Screening
Dina - On release nationwide from Friday 20 October, including at Bertha Dochouse in London.
Dina is a quirky and unconventional love story between a neurodivergent couple as they navigate their burgeoning relationship and strive to reconcile their conflicting approaches to romance and intimacy.
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