Koroli Repu

There is not much going on in the Ukrainian village friends Dima and Zheka call home. The two young men work on their parents' farm and in a petrol station. They see themselves as "bros" however and even manage to perform two rap gigs at the local disco, by means of which Dima also hopes to impress his girlfriend Svieta. Then, however, an old acquaintance gets the notoriously cash-strapped boy involved in the dealings of violent car thieves. A good-natured village boy, for whom the virtual “gangsta” world was nothing but an exotic dream, gets caught up in the very real mafia underworld and afterwards there's no turning back. Director Myroslav Latyk doesn't gloss over this criminal parallel world, and yet he does bring comic relief via no small amount of music, dreamlike sequences (the highlight of which is a rap during the potato harvest) and the depictions of Dima's family and love life, as well as an in-depth portrayal of life in the Ukrainian provinces. And a fun fact: Real-life rapper Anton Velboi, aka Wellboy, plays the part of Zheka.

Weltspiegel: Original version with English subtitles + German simultaneous translation.
Glad-House/Obenkino: original version with English subtitles