The Elf’s Tower

Script and director Polina Kelm

Those who happen to get into a mental health institution strive to leave it as soon as possible and never to get back. Having come to the hospital, Serhiy not only stays there - he starts his own theatre. This is a theatre where patients play on the stage alongside amateur teens and even Serhiy's own children. He never splits his actors into separate groups. They all work together at staging the play written by one of the patients, called 'The Elf’s Tower'. She wrote a metaphoric tale, where the protagonist - an elf - finds himself in a harsh, ravenous city of people. This is a place where everyone cares only about himself and his own survival. The Elf wants to give people the gift of wings so that to lift them up over daily routine. But no one takes him seriously, he is mocked at and ridiculed. Only a handicapped girl believed him and managed to fly high over the city, its people and its problems...
Same with Serhiy - entering the hospital, he saw there not just patients, not mentally challenged people, but unique, special persons. He saw elfpeople, whom he tries to free, rip them out of the cage of prejudice. His aim is to return them to the world, but firstly - to return them to themselves. What drives him is his genuine belief that true purpose of art is to make this world a better place.