I NEVER HAD DREAMS OF MY SON

I Never Had Dreams of My Son is a stark reminder that war is comprised of a million private devastations, each one echoing for years

ABOUT THE FILM

In August 2014, Oleksii Shevliuha disappeared during the Battle of Ilovaisk in eastern Ukraine. Five years later, his father searches for Oleksii through Ukrainian folklore and modern technology. Many hundreds of YouTube videos later, he catches sight of an imprisoned man resembling his son.

Directed by Jason Blevins

Premiere: March 9, 2022 on New Yorker Magazine

Genre: Documentary Film

Countries of origin: Ukraine, USA

Production company: See-K Cooperative

AWARDS

New Orleans Film Festival 2022

Special Jury Mention in Best Documentary Short competition

Kyiv International Short Film Festival 2022

Special Jury Mention in Ukrainian competition

Doc.Berlin 2022

Best Connecting Cultures Film

WATCH THE MOVIE

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

In the spring of 2014, we met Oleksii Shevliuha while he was a Ukrainian activist occupying Kyiv’s central square. He was a sincere individual who cared passionately for better country. We lost touch as he joined the war effort that summer. Sometime in 2017, I learned that shortly after our final meeting with Oleksii, he had gone missing in the Battle of Ilovaisk.

Having several hours of footage of him, we tracked down his father, Oleksandr. It was during our first meeting with Oleksandr that he surprised us with print outs of a POW march in Donetsk, Ukraine. He pointed to one captured soldier and said, “This is my son.”

Producer Olena Lysenko and I knew we had to do something to bring not only Oleksandr and Oleksii’s story to the world, but that of anyone whose lives have been touched by conflict and war.

PRESS

“Oleksii Shevliuha has been missing since 2014, when he went to fight pro-Russia separatists in the east. Jason Blevins and Olena Lysenko’s “I Never Had Dreams of My Son” follows the father who has never stopped searching for him.” Read The New Yorker Magazine article by Anna Kordunsky