After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine's social and political institutions faced massive change, including an increasingly corrupt government and crippled infrastructure. A number of the nation's youth wound up homeless and addicted to a lethal cocktail of injected cold medicine and alcohol. In the early 2000s a pastor from Mariupol named Gennadiy Mokhnenko took up the fight against child homelessness by forcibly abducting street kids and bringing them to his Pilgrim Republic rehabilitation center—the largest organization of its kind in the former Soviet Union. Gennadiy's ongoing efforts and unabashedly tough love approach to his city's problems has made him a folk hero for some, and a lawless vigilante to others. Despite criticism, Gennadiy is determined to continue his work.
Direction
Hoover's kinetic style turns documentary into thriller.
Editing
Rapid-fire cuts mirror Gennadiy's relentless urgency.
Production
Unprecedented access to Ukraine's underbelly.
Director
Steve Hoover
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Director Steve Hoover originally went to Ukraine to film a short; Gennadiy's charisma ballooned it into a feature. The pastor later criticized the film for not making him look heroic enough.
The 'krokodil' epidemic depicted — desomorphine cooked from cold medicine — would kill thousands across Russia and Ukraine in the 2010s, making Gennadiy's early intervention tragically prescient.
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