Ukrainian action thriller billed as Saving Private Ryan for the drone age

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Last edited Sun Apr 26, 2026, 02:22 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/26/ukrainian-action-thriller-billed-as-saving-private-ryan-for-the-drone-age

Ukrainian action thriller billed as Saving Private Ryan for the drone age

Killhouse is based on real-life story of civilian couple saved from battlefield by Ukrainian drone operators

Luke Harding
Sun 26 Apr 2026 00.00 EDT

It is being billed as Ukraine’s answer to Saving Private Ryan, updated for an age of drones.

The war movie Killhouse is an action thriller which shows off the latest in battlefield technology. Released this week, it features cameos by figures well known in Ukraine, including the nation’s former military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov. One missing person is Donald Trump. The film is conveniently set in 2024, when Washington and Kyiv were allies.

Its director, Liubomyr Levytskyi, said he was inspired by a real life story, when a couple trying to rescue relatives came under Russian attack. The man was badly wounded. A Ukrainian military unit nearby sent in a drone with a piece of paper. It said: “Follow me.” The woman followed the drone, dodging mines and bullets. Russian soldiers threw her unconscious husband into a trench. Incredibly, he survived.

…

The director made a 30-minute documentary, Follow Me, which he said got wide attention. “I realised that this story really strikes a chord, and people get it. Drones in general, well, they’re something new. And I thought, right, this story needs to be made into a film.”

…

The US journalist Audrey MacAlpine – who plays a version of herself – said filming had to stop on several occasions. “There were air raid alerts. We had to hide. It was a war within a war,” she said. The actor Denis Kapustin said some cast members would nap in a bomb shelter, waiting for the threat to pass. Of the blurring of fiction and reality, he said: “The movie is totally meta and postmodern.”

… more … trailer and documentary at link…

(Saved: Piece of paper stuck on the drone. Wow.)