Project
Short Fiction Film “Oleся the Book-Eater”
Duration: ~15 min
Genre: Arthouse drama with elements of dark comedy
Target audience: 18+ (festival circuit, international audiences)
Production location: Lviv, Ukraine
Logline
The life of Olesya, a 30-year-old woman, collapses after being diagnosed with a mysterious, incurable disease. Abandoned and desperate, she discovers an uncanny cure from a strange old man: eating books. As she consumes literature, new worlds open before her—yet the danger of being trapped inside them grows ever more real.
Short Synopsis
Olesya is an ordinary woman whose routine life shatters when doctors reveal an unknown illness with no treatment. Her husband leaves, she loses her job, and she sinks into isolation. Then she meets a peculiar old man who offers her an unusual remedy—eating books. To her surprise, consuming literature restores her strength, but it also alters her perception of reality: the world distorts, objects lose meaning, and dreams blend with waking life.
As she devours the works of Molière, Balzac, and Maupassant, Olesya gains strange clarity and influence over others, yet drifts dangerously between parallel realities. Her visions threaten to consume her entirely, until she finds herself imprisoned inside a book—a new universe where she becomes both creator and captive.
The film balances drama and absurdity, offering an allegory of postmodern crisis and the eternal hunger for meaning in a fragmented world.
TIZER 2024
Story by Swerhiy Savcenko
Reading: Yurko Prohasko