Featured project: Parateichion

history, drama, thriller, medieval, adventure, action

Logline:

A man from 15th-century Kyiv goes through dramatic adventures while the attempts to reunite Christianity and to save Constantinople from the Osmans are being made. He describes the fall of Constantinople in 1453 in his famous book.

Predicted MPAA rating: PG4%, PG13 41%, R55%

(as checked by ScriptBook)

Pitched to the Ukranian State Film Agency (USFA)

The Background:

Europe of the 15th century is unable to put up any effective resistance to the massive surge of the Osman Empire. The attempts to promote European unity fail. But there are people who never gave up. Coming from different nations, cultures, traditions, religions, and social groups, they not only confront their enemies - they try to overcome their own disagreements and various obstacles on the way to mutual understanding and reconciliation. They are the people who started to pave the long way to United Europe.

Nestor-Iskander, who fought in 1453 and wrote the Tale of the Taking of Constantinople by the Turks, is one of the most mysterious personalities in European history. The film's storyline is an attempt to reconstruct his life and astounding spiritual, mental, and physical journey. We see not only Constantinople, but also Germany, Italy, Balkans, Poland, Lithuania, and Muscovy

In this project, Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror is not shown as a plain evildoer and ordinary tyrant. He is the leader playing by the rules of his empire-building struggle, acting much ahead of his time, especially noting his great strategy planning and organizational work. However, there certainly are many evildoers all around, as it happens at wars.

All the adventures, fights, salvations, and sufferings are there only to touch upon much broader contexts and challenges Europe still needs to answer in modern times: even today, religious and cultural differences are still used as excuses for enmity and bloody conflicts, while the rich spiritual and cultural heritage of Catholicism and Orthodoxy, Christianity, and Islam are often neglected.

About the film

This film presents the story of Nestor-Iskander. He was the outstanding writer who had fought in 1453 and wrote the "Tale of the taking of Constantinople by Turks". His work is still used as a source of important historical knowledge, but we don't really know much about him.

The storyline of the film is based on the facts. It opens up an impressive and complicated panorama of European affairs of that time. The taking of Constantinople by the Osmans in 1453 had a powerful impact on many nations - and so it shapes the personal dramas of the main characters of this film. These personal dramas make the people show their best and worst, disclose their true colors, hidden agendas, and archetypical ways. At the same time, these individual dramas once more emphasize that love, friendship, faithfulness, and morality, are, in fact, eternal values that make us humans.

Parateichion ("παρατείχιον") is a Greek word for the outer perimeter of the ancient land walls of Constantinople. Audacious volunteers from all around Europe, but mainly from Italy, joined forces with the tiny bunch of locals to fight at the walls to protect the city in 1453. It might seem that the fight was totally hopeless, but they fought anyway. Why did they do it? And why did European rulers leave them completely behind?

There are many characters representing different nations and cultures. The project is addressed not only to those who love historical dramas and action, but also to everybody who has a deep interest in medievalism, religion, and culture, and wants to learn more. As we see, the basic agendas of the 15th century did not lose the edge in our time.

The screenplay is based on Parateichion history novel by Oleg Bazylewicz.

Please also check the followinjg links:

• The film's teaser
• Director's bio
• Producer's bio
• Sceenplay writer's bio
• Our blog articles on the topic
• Project gallery

Segyi Sotnychenko

Film Director

We take our spectators straight there, to that epoque, showing what people did, what they worried about, what they lived and died for. In a way, modern time Ukraine is the Parateichion - the front line and the battlefield where many key issues must be resolved.