Iryna Bilyk, Ponomariov and Mohylevska play themselves: "The Chervona Ruta Train" is out for 35 years of Independence

Cinemas are showing "The Chervona Ruta Train", a romantic road comedy marking the 55th anniversary of the Chervona Ruta musical and 35 years of Independence. The film opened on 20 August.

The details are listed on the release page of the Planeta Kino chain.

The most interesting part for us is the second cast: legends of the Ukrainian stage play themselves. Among them are Iryna Bilyk, Oleksandr Ponomariov, Natalia Mohylevska and Oleh Mykhailiuta.

The third train in a row

This is the studio's third film about trains, after "A Train on 31 December" and "A Train to Christmas". The format is the same: the closed space of a carriage in which every passenger has a chance to meet their fate, with a legendary route as the frame for the story.

The Ukrainian premiere came with a wide release abroad — in the USA, Canada, Switzerland, European countries and Israel. For a Ukrainian comedy, a simultaneous start on that many markets is still an event.

Why Chervona Ruta is no accident here

The song the film takes its name from stopped being merely a hit a long time ago: it is one of those rare cases where a single melody became a shared point for several generations. The film uses that deliberately — which is why a release date four days before Independence Day looks less like coincidence than calculation.

As reported earlier by ONE//FM, Independence sounds in four cities at once this week — from the Dovzhenko Film Studio to Berlin's Jägerstraße.