The first episodes were screened this week at Mipcom, one of the world’s leading TV showcases, in the southern French city of Cannes.
It follows a psychologist named Lydia (played by Anastasia Karpenko) who decides to offer a lift to refugees displaced by the Russian invasion of February 2022.
The show combines these improvised therapy sessions with flashbacks from the passengers’ former lives.
“What was very important was not to create a show about war — it’s about how war affects people’s destiny, their world views, their prospects,” said writer Eugen Tunik, 31.
“When the war started, I myself understood that all the problems I might have had before February 24 were absolutely no longer as significant,” he added.
Filming began in March in undisclosed locations around Kyiv.
“It was crucial for me to shoot in Ukraine, not because I’m crazy, but to show what was really going on at the beginning of the war,” said Tunik, adding that they always filmed near bomb shelters.
Some French actors also flew in for one episode.
“In Her Car” has been backed by several European broadcasters, including Gaumont, with producers hoping for a February release.
– ‘Not propaganda’ –
Though Tunik himself has stopped speaking Russian — like many Ukrainians since the invasion — he wanted to keep the language in the show.
Lydia’s husband, originally from Lugansk in eastern Ukraine, is one of several characters who speak Russian.
“People in eastern Ukraine especially in big cities were speaking Russian — that’s the truth,” said Tunik.
“I didn’t want to make a propaganda series,” he added.
“It would have been so understandable to have a view of Russia as the bad guy, and full of hatred, but at no time did Eugen fall into this trap,” said Gaumont producer Andreas Bareiss.
Tunik says they discussed whether it was too soon to fictionalise the war, but felt that it only serves as background to the drama and avoids referencing particularly horrific moments such as the massacre in Bucha.
Others feel now is exactly the right time for a show on the war.
“For me, this series is really a reminder that the war is still out there… now that the first shock is over,” said Veronika Kovacova, of one of its production companies, Beta Film.
Another series based on the war has also been in the works: “Those Who Stayed” is billed as a comedy-drama anthology about the early days of the attack on Kyiv.
It comes to Netflix on November 1 in Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, and has TV distribution deals with several other countries including France and Australia.
