Code Chronicles: A Docudrama Unveiling Ukrainian IT's Journey from the '90s to War

From The First Code To The Creation Of The Second Movie: Ukrainian IT Invites Hollywood

Discover how the most prominent Ukrainian IT entrepreneurs and developers created the industry in the country. CEO and founder of software development company — Powercode, and head of The European Association of Software Engineering (EASE) Vladyslav Savchenko assembled a team and directed a docudrama about the Ukrainian IT sector.
The project started a few months before the first rocket alarms in Kyiv. It grew exponentially, comparing the idea to its outcome and comparing the project's budget, which multiplied many times over. Savchenko shared how he gathered the words of his colleagues and scientists, how money from contracts in the 90s turned to dust, and how homes in 2022 turned into ruins.

We asked the film's main ideologist a dozen questions. We requested an explanation of The First Code.

How did the idea for this film come about? What inspired it?

In our work, we were constantly searching for companies with exciting stories. We searched and explored who was the first. We realized at one point there was no unified story, no book, video, or article that brought everything together. No information was available about the companies, their achievements, their technologies, or how they hired people.

Our creation is part of the fascinating story from a business perspective. Someone had to transmit this story at some point. And EASE team, which unites technology companies, came to me and said they had an idea to make a docudrama film.

Let's start with the Title. What is The First Code?

We disguised the concept of the first commercial lines of code in terms of the first code. The first code was written in the 1950s, and the first books on cybernetics were published in Ukraine. However, our story begins more with the country gaining independence and writing the first commercial lines of code for which money was paid.

Engaging in business here was prohibited before independence. Businesspeople at the onset of independence were not considered a prestigious profession. There was no such concept. It was considered improper. And that's what we talk about in the film.

It tells the story of the first outsourcing company that emerged in the late 1980s and the product companies that started to appear around 1995.

Initially, there were practically no internal clients in Ukraine. All our founders and companies immediately sought contact with clients abroad. The currency was constantly devalued, and a contract you signed would turn into several kilograms of meat in a year. At the beginning of the journey, the focus was on money, but as projects were delivered, they simply became the way.

We sold code on floppy disks; there was yet to be an internet. There wasn't even internet between countries, although there were tasks and computers. Computers were costly, and few had access to them.

Many decades of history in a few hours? What is the film generally about?

We talk about how IT specialists interacted with the underworld. When the government noticed the industry at some point, they started raiding various IT enterprises. We discussed how we dealt with that and how we reacted.

This story is about how the industry emerged despite certain circumstances rather than because of them.

Then came the integration stage with project management, which we learned from Americans. We also describe the broader emergence of our products, probably around 2008-2012. Many companies realized they needed to become very big to overcome crises.

There is a significant segment about the cyber army and how our specialists came together to help the state resist the invasion of Ukraine.

And we end up with a film that unifies, telling a shared story similar to many countries. But we were always catching up here. We decided to create such an exciting film.

You mentioned that it's a docudrama. What does that mean?

A docudrama implies a format that combines elements of a fictional film. The narrator begins to describe events, and their dialogue can transition into a scene that explicitly portrays that event as interpreted by us. There are also humorous moments, all just like in real life.

The film includes military segments — footage of actual houses and cars on fire, locations damaged by real battles, missile strikes, and artillery. These locations were not restored after early 2022.

There was no fully described history anywhere. How did you gather the facts for the plot?

Our information-gathering process was divided into three parts: researching open-source information, consulting with university researchers, and obtaining accounts from the founders of IT companies. We cross-referenced everything, searching for intersections. Our goal was to find a unified narrative depicting events' development. Crisis points form a continuous thread throughout.

An interesting aspect is that Alexey Skripnik, the founder of ELEKS company, appears in the film. He passed away one day before the full-scale Russian attack. Skripnik was heavily involved in the IT solutions used during the war and likely had some information. Under the pressure at that time, his health failed.

He is featured in our film, and he predicted a war of robots, saying that sooner or later, Russians would come with robots to kill Ukrainians, and we would have to deploy our robots. I laughed at the idea of a robot war at that moment in the footage. He left us with that thought, forever immortalized.

Did you continue shooting even after February 2022?

We had already shot a significant portion of our film when the great war began. The project was put on hold from February 2022 until August. Almost the entire movie was shot in Ukraine, in Kyiv, and in the Kyiv region. We have passed on the history with ELEKS, GlobalLogic, EPAM, NIX, and others.

We also filmed in Barcelona. There we talked with representatives of the ed-tech project Preply.

People didn't know what to do at the start of the war. There were no instructions on how to act. Some fled, while others simply sat and waited. In the IT community, many tried to figure out how they could help, using their laptops as weapons on the cyber front.

We face the world's first cyberwar, where drones, and robots play essential roles. Unfortunately, digital efforts to inform ordinary citizens on the other side of the show had no impact. Despite the spread of videos, texts, and recordings of events, they couldn't change the situation in the country.

After the start of a full-scale war, you decided to increase the budget and seriousness?

I decided to continue the project in August but in a different format. We began assembling a full-fledged film crew that same month. We invited director, Arthur Lerman. Furthermore, we realized we needed to change the layout and make a real movie. It was time for Ukraine to tell its story and show how we can be of value.

Here's a moment: the old interviews we filmed before the film crew's arrival turned out to be in HD. When we met our director, he asked about interviews in HD. And I understood that HD is very bad as a non-expert in filmmaking.

An interesting method by which we got out of the situation. We included numerous locations with screens in the style of that time, and computer equipment from that era. The audience at the closed premiere of the film didn't realize it was our mistake.

How much time and money did it take to make it?

We started shooting in November 2021. The first screening occurred in May 2023.

It cost around $500,000. The budget increased significantly. The initial funding was between $20,000 and $30,000. By September 2022, it had reached $150,000, and as we started seeing the results, I turned into a cinephile.

We probably completed the shooting process twice before, but then we resumed and added more scenes because there were gaps. But it was worth it because we achieved a format that resembles an expensive documentary reproduction of events.

We also had some wasted money. We shot a significant portion with impressive graphics at a great location. Still, the company asked us to remove and not use that material in the film. They thought we wanted to portray them in a negative light.

Our goal is to create a unifying product, not conflicts. So, we agreed to their request in principle, but I lost $15,000 on that shoot.

The search suggests that you have already started presenting the film. When will The First Code be available to watch?

It has yet to be made available to the public. Currently, there are closed previews, preparations for offline screenings in Ukraine, and negotiations with platforms.

Regarding release dates, the offline premiere is scheduled for autumn 2023 in Ukraine. It will likely be available on platforms after the offline release.

We are currently in talks with Netflix, Amazon, and Apple. We are reaching out to all of them. This task is also a challenging one. We are negotiating with several agents who work with different platforms.

What's the problem?

In reality, platform products are usually approved by the platforms first and then made. Still, we did it the other way around. However, we are targeting an international audience and aim to attract an international audience.

Our film is made at the level of a movie with an $80 million budget, like 'Tetris.' Theoretically, if they plan to recoup their expenses, recouping half a million to a million dollars invested in the film is a realistic task using global platforms.

How do you convince people to watch it?

The film is simply magnificent. Various people who attended the screenings, including creators with significant capital, left inspired in the end. It tells stories of difficulties, overcoming challenges, and achievements. And around 5% of people from each screening come up to me and say, 'Thank you, I'm very motivated to conquer new heights and create new projects.' It's like exactly what I needed.

It has a very epic ending, and we put much effort into it. Without spoiling it, there is a conversation about how everything turned out, and one of the main characters says, 'It's only the beginning.'

Will you continue?

We have already started working on another film and are writing the script. It will be an entirely fictional movie about the 90s and 2000s era. There will be supporting actors from Hollywood because we are doing it slightly differently.

We're actually heading to the USA in early autumn with these cool little screenings of The First Code. It's going to go down from September 13th to 19th, and we're talking about intimate showings for a few dozen folks. And guess what? We're even gonna shoot a kick-ass roadshow about the whole experience.