Production
The concept for U Are the Universe began while director Pavlo Ostrikov was a law student at the National Aviation University in Kyiv. He wrote and performed a short play, "Cosmos", in 2011, about the last person alive in space after the destruction of Earth. Switching careers to filmmaking after graduation, Ostrikov revisited the premise, writing the first draft of the film in 2015. He initially had difficulty finding funding for it, estimating it would cost US$2.5 million, but in 2017 he met producer Volodymyr Yatsenko at a Ukrainian Film Academy awards ceremony, who agreed to take on the project.
They pitched the film to the Ukrainian State Film Agency, securing further investment in 2020 and hiring actor Volodymyr Kravchuk and a French actress for the main roles. Principal photography was divided into two stages: simpler interior scenes, and more complicated exterior scenes in outer space, where the actors needed to be attached to cables. The first stage concluded in early January 2022. Before it could begin, the second stage was interrupted by the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the French actress in the female lead role declined to travel to Kyiv due to safety concerns.
Shooting resumed in autumn 2022. The production resolved the casting problem by hiring a Ukrainian actress, Daria Plahtiy, for the character's physical appearance, and a Belgian actress, Alexia Depicker, for the character's French voice, then combining the two performances. Several members of the cast and crew, including the lead actor, the voice actor for the robot Maxim, and the producer served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine during production. The film's practical effects specialist, Alexander Suvorov, died in the war.
Principal photography was completed by December 2022, with a substantial amount of post-production work remaining, particularly in computer-generated visual effects. For the spaceship's design and effects, the production worked with Ukrainian visual effects company Magic Room. The film's soundtrack came from Ukrainian pop music from the 1970s and 1980, with the aim of developing a "Ukrainian space" sound.
