Sweet Darusya

In the second half of the twentieth century, during the days of the Soviet occupation in the Ukrainian Carpathians a story unfolds. Living in a Hutsul village is an orphan named Darusya. She suffers from the unbearable headaches. Her only solace from the pain comes through her connection with elemental forces of nature. Grounding with the earth and immersion in ice-cold mountain fed streams brings her back from pain. As a child, she lost her willingness to speak. The villagers torment her with sweet confections. The sight of sweets squeeze her head like a vise. The #attacks of recollections happen at random - torment her. Bloody executions, secret interrogations by the NKVD, desecration of the rebel corpses, and bonfires play over and over again in her head. She does not remember her mother but always sees the outstretched hand of her decomposed father asking for milk. Ivan Tsvychok is a wandering musician who feels empathy with this tortured soul and tries to help her. A moment of happiness as lovers is shattered when the neighbors take actions against the two. Ivan is imprisoned. Stripped of his identity, Ivan is returned in the image of a Soviet soldier. The secret of her past becomes exposed as the mental barrier to the painful momentcrumbles. What truly happened? Was it real or her imagination? Is it candy or something more that truly causes her suffering?