Dovbush

Dovbush tells the story of Oleksa Dovbush, the 18th century Carpathian outlaw leader, and its own production stretched over years in much the way the story's world did. Filming began in August 2018, stopped for technical reasons and later for pandemic restrictions, and the final block of photography began in June 2021. A spring 2022 premiere that had been planned was cancelled when Russia's full-scale invasion began, and the film finally opened on Ukraine's Independence Day in 2023. Instead of building its mountain world digitally, the crew shot across more than fifty natural and historical locations in the Carpathians, in the Lviv and Ternopil regions, and in Kyiv, including Svirzh Castle. Ukrainian coverage of the film notes that its battle sequences rely on real locations and practical stunt work rather than heavy computer graphics. Even though the production was built around practical Carpathian landscapes, matching and extending those environments across a shoot that took several years and two production blocks still called for digital painting. Chumak worked on the film as a DMP artist.