MIFF: Sanatorium

Kuyalnik Sanatorium is on the shores of Odessa in southern Ukraine. The health resort has seen better days, as have the people who visit in search of healing.

People visit the "Sanatorium" for the alleged healing properties of the black estuary mud beside which it stands. The building and its guests both show signs of wear. The documentary exposes life in the shadow of war, complete with regular air raid warnings as drones and missiles fall on the city seen billowing with smoke across the water. There's some semblance of normalcy with aquarobics and karaoke, rounded out by gym and medical equipment from another era. Clever cinematography makes the most of the Soviet-era brutalist architecture and a dull landscape strung with electricity towers. Keeping it together.

MIFF 2025
76 mins