“Undoubtedly one of the most beautiful films on our screens for a while, also one of the best on the theme of childhood.” (Cahier du Cinema’s Ariel Schweitzer)

Filmmaker Emmanuel Finkiel (Voyages, La douleur) elegantly adapts Aharon Appelfeld’s award-winning 2006 novel Blooms of Darkness. In WW2 Ukraine, twelve-year-old Hugo is taken in by his mother’s friend, Mariana (Mélanie Thierry, TJFF2014’s Pour une femme), a beautiful sex worker at a brothel frequented mostly by German soldiers. As the war rages on outside the vibrant brothel, Hugo and Mariana form an intimate yet complex bond of love, loyalty and devotion. The revelatory performance by young newcomer Artem Kyryk as Hugo, as well as Finkiel’s dynamic direction bring to life Hugo’s psychic world as he is forced to navigate the uneasy spaces between life and death, good and evil, and maternal and sexual love.

See also Emmanuel Finkiel’s first film Voyages.