The Aerotim aerobatic team and the B&H Film Distribution Company presented a trailer for the documentary film “Lift Force” dedicated to the pilots and technicians of the Army Aviation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The film features real-life pilots and aviators who flew to besieged Mariupol, Zmiinyi Island and performed missions behind enemy lines.

The film was made by director Oleksandr Stratiyenko, aviator Timur Fatkullin and the Aerotim team. By the way, it was Timur Fatkullin who piloted the Aero L-39 Albatros jet trainer/aerobatic aircraft that seemed to be hovering in the air during the drone filming. As a reminder, this video won the GoPro Awards: Million Dollar Challenge in 2023.

So you don’t have to worry about the quality of the aerial footage, and the trailer shows it clearly. It is not often that a documentary is more spectacular than a Hollywood blockbuster like Top Gun: Maverick.

But besides the spectacular footage of the combat work of the Ukrainian Armed Forces helicopters, the film Lifting Power has more important things – real heroes – flight engineers, engineers, air gunners and combat pilots who are defending Ukraine, who talk about their tasks, their feelings and their motivation.

About 15 people worked on the filming of The Lift Force for a year. The filming took place in Poltava, Kostiantynivka, Sloviansk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Lviv. The result is a real action documentary that resembles a Hollywood movie in terms of the complexity of its filming.

“The main idea of the film is encapsulated in its title, ‘The Lift’. It’s about this invisible force that makes your heart beat faster and happier, that makes multi-ton helicopters rise into the air like graceful birds, that gives you hope and drives away fear, that makes even gravity give in. We wanted the viewer not only to see and feel it, but most importantly, to find its source in themselves. So we had an extremely difficult task – to show something that cannot be seen with the eyes, something that cannot be dissected and examined even under the most powerful microscope,” says Timur Fatkullin about the film.

The premiere of the documentary The Uplifting Force in Ukrainian cinemas will take place on October 10, 2024.