Sanatorium (Documentary)
Director: Gar O’Rourke
Producer: Samantha Corr,Andrew Freedman,Ken Wardrop
Cinematographer: Denys Melnyk
Composer: Denis Kilty
Editor: John Murphy
War rages outside, but within the walls of an ex-Soviet spa in Ukraine, the health kick continues.
On the outskirts of Odesa, the popular health resort Kuyalnik Sanatorium sits by an estuary whose black mud is famed for its health-reviving properties. Despite the war being waged around them, an assemblage of resilient staff and guests go about their days within the large, Soviet-built brutalist building. Coming to the facility in search of healing, the patients may just find love and connection in the process.
Many recent documentaries about Ukraine have won Oscars and garnered international attention, but none have quite been like Sanatorium – an at times irreverent, yet no less insightful glimpse into a part of the war-ravaged country where something resembling normalcy is carrying on. With a cast of larger-than-life characters, Irish first-time feature director Gar O’Rourke has built a time capsule at once wildly out of time and incredibly relevant to the here and now. Filmed across one summer, Sanatorium may just prove as rejuvenating as its mud baths, massages and salt pool therapy.
“There’s a hint of Wes Anderson in the film’s look … a strikingly cinematic, affectionately droll study of Ukrainian resilience in the face of war.” – Screen Daily