Heartfelt and hilarious, Give Me Liberty channels the spirit of the Czech New Wave in its freewheeling tale of life on the edges of Midwestern America.

Somewhere in Milwaukee, Russian-American Vic is having one of the most chaotic days of his life. While juggling family pressures and the responsibilities of his job driving wheelchair-bound people to their destinations, he is roped into getting a group of elderly relatives to a funeral – and the day has barely begun yet.

Made on a shoe-string budget, Give Me Liberty features an engaging mix of professional and non-professional actors (including some with lived experience of their character’s conditions), and draws from Russian-American director Kirill Mikhanovsky’s (Sonhos de Peixe, MIFF 2006) personal experiences, giving the film an authentically lived-in air. Fast-paced and bittersweet, it’s a funny and touching portrayal of marginalised people navigating life’s roadblocks and trying to find the American Dream in spite of it all.

“Mikhanovsky mixes different styles of comedy, but he binds them with a realist approach that grounds everything in an offhand, absurdist tone … a journey worth taking.” – Screen