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108 pages |
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KOSTYA is a sweeping historical survival drama inspired by a true story, following a Ukrainian boy who survives three of the twentieth century’s most brutal systems—and defeats them without ever surrendering his humanity.
Beginning in Stalin’s famine-stricken Ukraine, the film tracks Konstantin “Kostya” Lysenko from childhood through the Holodomor, Nazi occupation, forced labor in German mines, Soviet filtration camps after the war, and finally a gutwrenching escape through Russia that takes grit and wit. Where other survivors learn to lie, steal, or harden themselves, Kostya clings—almost stubbornly—to honesty and moral clarity, even when it costs him safety, love, and freedom.
After years of Nazi enslavement, Kostya believes liberation has come—only to be seized again by Stalin’s regime and sent to a Soviet logging camp. There he forms an unlikely bond with Ivan, a broken older prisoner who once betrayed another man to survive. Kostya’s integrity slowly redeems Ivan, and together they attempt a desperate escape across a thousand miles of hostile territory.
Hiding on a remote farm, Kostya falls in love for the first time—only to be forced into an impossible moral choice when the MVD officer hunting them attempts to rape the farmer’s mother. Kostya kills him to save her, triggering a relentless manhunt led by the officer’s powerful superior. The fugitives race through Moscow, trains, bombed-out cities, and checkpoints as the Soviet state closes in.
In the climax, Kostya is cornered in his hometown—but instead of running, he turns and confronts his pursuer in public. Armed not with violence but with knowledge of a buried sexual assault and a high-level cover-up, Kostya forces the system to retreat. The general backs down, calculating the risk of exposure. Kostya wins by refusing to be erased.
KOSTYA is not a war movie about heroics on the battlefield—it is about moral courage under totalitarian pressure. It explores how power operates through secrecy, how survival corrodes the soul, and how truth—spoken at the right moment—can still frighten even the most absolute authority. Comparable in scope and seriousness to The Pianist and Schindler’s List, the film offers something rare: a story where integrity itself becomes the weapon that gets a man home.
Beginning in Stalin’s famine-stricken Ukraine, the film tracks Konstantin “Kostya” Lysenko from childhood through the Holodomor, Nazi occupation, forced labor in German mines, Soviet filtration camps after the war, and finally a gutwrenching escape through Russia that takes grit and wit. Where other survivors learn to lie, steal, or harden themselves, Kostya clings—almost stubbornly—to honesty and moral clarity, even when it costs him safety, love, and freedom.
After years of Nazi enslavement, Kostya believes liberation has come—only to be seized again by Stalin’s regime and sent to a Soviet logging camp. There he forms an unlikely bond with Ivan, a broken older prisoner who once betrayed another man to survive. Kostya’s integrity slowly redeems Ivan, and together they attempt a desperate escape across a thousand miles of hostile territory.
Hiding on a remote farm, Kostya falls in love for the first time—only to be forced into an impossible moral choice when the MVD officer hunting them attempts to rape the farmer’s mother. Kostya kills him to save her, triggering a relentless manhunt led by the officer’s powerful superior. The fugitives race through Moscow, trains, bombed-out cities, and checkpoints as the Soviet state closes in.
In the climax, Kostya is cornered in his hometown—but instead of running, he turns and confronts his pursuer in public. Armed not with violence but with knowledge of a buried sexual assault and a high-level cover-up, Kostya forces the system to retreat. The general backs down, calculating the risk of exposure. Kostya wins by refusing to be erased.
KOSTYA is not a war movie about heroics on the battlefield—it is about moral courage under totalitarian pressure. It explores how power operates through secrecy, how survival corrodes the soul, and how truth—spoken at the right moment—can still frighten even the most absolute authority. Comparable in scope and seriousness to The Pianist and Schindler’s List, the film offers something rare: a story where integrity itself becomes the weapon that gets a man home.
