Video on demand: Tiger Hunters

A young aviator engineer, Hryhorii Mnogogrishnyi, escapes from a train carrying prisoners to a Siberian concentration camp. After struggling to survive in the wild, Hryhorii finds refuge in the Sirki family, Ukrainian immigrants who live in harmony with nature and hunt tigers. Here Hryhorii finds shelter and love. But the NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) is out on the scent for the blood of the young engineer, leading to a deadly duel.

With a rich storyline about love, freedom and the strength of the human spirit, Tiger Hunters is an award-winning musical based on the eponymous novel by Ivan Bahrianyi. A message of hope in troubled times in which the brave find happiness, Tiger Hunters is an uplifting piece about integrity, humanity and the ability to resist evil. The plot of the musical keeps the audience in constant tension: from the struggle for life in the wild jungle to the confrontation with evil, personified in the image of Major Medvyn. The production, filmed Kyiv’s Operetta Theatre in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, combines delightful music, ingenious scenography taking us on trains, to bohemian entertainment and as far as a Ukrainian village in Siberia, complete with embroidered towels and icons. Bogdan Strutynskyi General Director and Artistic Director of the Theatre says of his production: ‘It is time to return the great Ukrainian names to their worthy place in history. Ivan Bahrianyi is one of those figures whose path went from oblivion to immortality. Our Tiger Hunters is a hymn to returning home, to find one’s own identity.’