Documenting Ukraine's Frontline: Alisa Kovalenko on War, Sexual Violence and Survival

Content warning: This episode includes discussions of war, violence, sexual violence, rape, trauma, and the experiences of survivors of conflict.

Ukrainian filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko is an award-winning documentary director whose work explores war, identity, memory and the resilience of the human spirit. Through intimate and deeply human storytelling, she has documented the lives of people facing extraordinary circumstances, capturing both the devastation of conflict and the strength of those who continue to survive and rebuild.

Her acclaimed films include Home Games (2018), which follows a young Ukrainian woman balancing football, family responsibility and the challenges of life on the margins; No Obvious Signs (2018), exploring the experiences of Ukrainian women returning from the war in Donbas; We Will Not Fade Away (2023), a powerful portrait of teenagers growing up in Eastern Ukraine under the shadow of war; and My Dear Théo (2024), which continues her exploration of human connection, displacement and resilience.

In this deeply personal conversation, Alisa reflects on her experience as a survivor of conflict-related sexual violence from Russian soldiers, the realities faced by women during war, and the responsibility of documenting stories that the world must not ignore. She shares how filmmaking can become an act of witnessing, resistance and survival, preserving memories, challenging silence, and reminding us of the humanity behind every headline.

Through The Human Frame, Alisa explores what it means to tell stories during times of unimaginable suffering, and how art can help us process trauma, seek justice and hold onto hope.

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Host: Łucja Hawking

Music: Yago Cardalda 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome to the Human Frame Podcast with me, Wotsia Hawking, where I talk to incredible people that I've met along different industries to talk about art as a form of activism. Today I'm joined by Alissa Kovalenko. Thank you so much for joining me today, Alyssa. So Alissa Kovalenko is an award-winning Ukrainian documentary filmmaker based in Kiev who works, explores war, memory, and the resilience of everyday life. Her film centre Intimate Human Stories within larger political realities, often focusing on conflict and uncertainty. Her feature documentaries include Home Games, We Will Not Fade Away, where she's won over 20 international awards and was named the Best Ukrainian documentary by the Ukrainian Film Academy. Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Alyssa joined a volunteer combat unit on the front line before returning to filmmaking, but also filmmaking during. This experience informed her deeply personal film My Dear Teo. Her work has been supported by the Chicken and Egg Award and screened internationally on platforms including Netflix and also which we're going to be talking about your film Traces as well. So thank you so much for joining me today, Elisa, on this really important conversation stemming from you know sexual violence but also war and conflict and being away from your family during war as well. Thank you. Thank you for like having me here for uh for the podcast. No, thank you for honestly. I'm really excited to have this. Oh excited is the wrong word, but I'm really it's gonna be a very important conversation. Um so I just want to start at the beginning. You studied film before the war happened. When did that shift from something academic or something that you study into something more personal, even as a form of witnessing?

SPEAKER_03 2:22

So actually, I studied uh more like creative documentary in a film school in Kiev, and uh my professor, my main professor of this uh documentary uh directing faculty department, he actually motivated us uh to talk about reality also through our like personal feeling. So actually it was very naturally like came uh after my studies and even during my studies because Revolutional Maidan started in the middle of my studies. Uh uh so for me it was something like just continuation um of what I studied and what after happened in reality. I didn't feel that there was a line in between. Uh it was a kind of a breach. Yeah, I just think that revolution in Ukraine uh it made more people uh in Ukraine to start to focus more on documentary cinema because it's the most reactive way on the events in reality because for fiction you need more time, but with documentary you you can react on what's happening in front of your eyes like here and now and it's why more and more people uh in our society in Ukraine started to watch much more the documentary films and like also through documentary films kind of reflect on on our reality and our historical events which took place uh starting from Maidan Revolution, 2014.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Can and also just to give a context for people that might not know, how would you explain that the kind of obviously because the Russia-Ukrainian conflict is is a lot longer than a lot of people realize. Can you just give us a brief context of yeah, of how it basically started?

SPEAKER_03 4:42

Um you know, we're always joking like uh uh when uh when to from which uh uh date to start, uh from Kiev and Rush or like you know from like 1000 years ago or like from more current uh uh uh events uh like modern history. Uh so yeah, if we start to talk about like um Russia and Ukraine uh and also Russian imperialism uh even from like collapse of Soviet Union, and because uh pretty soon after the collapse of Soviet Union Russia started to rebuild uh the imperialistic uh like um uh structure of uh country and pretty soon it was clear that Russia needed Ukraine to be kind of a colony, you know, controlled country by by Russia. And uh when we had our revolution in 2014, uh you know we had the current president uh Yanukovych who was kind of pro-Russian president, and uh Putin kind of put ultimatum for uh this president Viktor Yanukovych that he will sign a kind of agreement to be in uh in one like kind of network with with Russia uh and uh we went to protest against it because we realized that uh again sign any agreements with Russia uh it's a step back to colonialism and uh uh we didn't want that. We wanted to be independent, democratic country. We already saw that in Russia totalitarian regime became much stronger, like democracy was like uh collapsing, and we didn't want to have the same uh in Ukraine, so we went to protest against this agreement between our like president Viktor Yanukovych and uh and Putin. And uh yeah, and that's um that was our way of like resilient and uh like resistance as a like independent country. After also uh after like our Russian uh president left Ukraine at the end of the revolution, uh Russia like decided to annex Crimea, and almost uh right after that they they started to send some of the people to help uh to kind of Donbass uh became wait, I don't know how to how to how to say it short very very shortly because it's it's really you know it's you can say it you can say it longer if that makes it easier. Yeah, because it's it's not an easy thing. Maybe it's better shorter. Uh yeah, so after annexation of Crimea, uh Russia like uh started to uh the aggression in Donbass. They sent uh the uh some uh military groups uh which were like hiding their like signs that they were like Russian officers or representatives of Russian army. They used some Russian people in Donbass to try to take control over Donbass and uh uh so that was actually the beginning of war in Donbass in 2014, uh in like uh April. And uh yeah, and that's what I observed when I I went to Donbass uh in April and uh what I saw there like uh that um all the consequences of Russian aggression and Russian manipulation and like just feeding a lot of propaganda uh to some like Russian groups of people which were not even majority in Donbass uh but it it created uh uh this uh collapse uh there and uh yeah but it was you know like kind of not a big group of aggressive people with guns. They they managed to control even uh you know bigger representatives like pro-Ukrainian groups because uh when uh some Russian guys have guns, if you're pro-Ukrainian, what you can do without a gun, like go to protest, and there are lots of people who went to pro-Ukrainian protests. Uh some people were killed, pro-Ukrainian people were killed in this uh protest. Uh and after the Russian separatists started to take some administration buildings under their control, they occupied some like towns, uh small cities, and also some like Russian troops arrived there. So for me it marked absolutely the beginning of uh Russian-Ukrainian war, which um Western world wanted to see as a like inner conflict, which was not the case.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Do you think that's also uh an issue because obviously Ukraine's not part of NATO, which complicates things so much further as well? Obviously, it does not mean that I mean look, there's so much more complications to everything that that could happen. But how does also the the 2022 invasion also differ? Obviously, that was more with Crimea, but was it an ongoing from the 2020-2014 attack or was it completely separate?

SPEAKER_03 10:46

No, I would like just maybe give a bit of background. So there was a very active face of war in Donbass in 2014, 2015, a bit of 2016, and after it became more like kind of slow war in Donbass. And uh with the full-scale invasion, of course, it changed situation like totally because uh it became not localized in Donbass, but it became like quite spread. Uh for me to be honest, uh I was uh it was clear that it will happen. I didn't think that it will be totally full scale. I thought that it would be spread uh in like more eastern part of Ukraine. It will be like the Paris, Kharkiv, Herzog, Klayev, that will be all eastern part. I didn't expect that they will even try to reach uh uh Kiev, so for me it was a like big uh surprise and uh but it was something uh expected from especially from uh this category of Ukrainians who were like much like all involved in the situation since uh Donbass in 2014. Since that time, like most of the people who who for example all participate as a volunteer fighters or like uh were like like had more knowledge about what happened, we were all expecting that uh full-scale war, it's uh like a question of uh time because uh Putin has this also sick imperialistic ambition and uh he really uh believes that uh uh Russian like empire uh uh should like uh be how to say realized its real potential and he believes that Ukraine is just a part of Russian Empire and uh so that's why there is no kind of like solution of like signing any agreement now because uh how you can sign agreement with some crazy guy who just thinks that he he needs this country because it's his, because he really believes that it's uh his part, that Ukraine is not independent country, that Ukraine cannot decide uh its own like future, that it's just a colony of a big Russian Empire, and um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

And it goes as far also because I've been to a few talks in Parliament about this as well, is you know, we've been taking children away from families and care homes and then sending them to Russia and training them as soldiers and then coming back, which I don't know, I get very emotional about all of this because I feel like it's you know it's stripping away the nation, you know, and then the the national identity about what Ukraine is all about. But yeah, but also I just wanted to ask you about how do the 2014 and 2022 differ for you as well personally?

SPEAKER_03 14:17

Oh 2014 it was a beginning, like uh and uh I didn't have any like experience of war, like uh I was uh 26, uh I was young, I was uh like romantic uh in a way. I mean about the future of our country, that after Maidan Revolution we were all like very inspired uh by the spirit that collectively and with our like uh strength of our civil society we can change something, we can really bring our country to European Union to to become like equal, like uh uh partner country in the EU, and um so I had a lot of belief inside myself and that we this Maidan generation that yeah we we can do a lot of things and we can change things and uh uh yeah, but after when I went to Donbass and first thing what I saw there it was posters with uh Soviet Union uh signs uh with uh like some uh um uh warnings like fuck uh European Union, fuck US and and I realized like oh my god it's like uh what Russia is trying to do is like just try to bring like Ukraine back to this like uh uh totalitarian imperialistic regime like uh 30 years 40 years ago like and uh when I when I went to administrative building uh which was already occupied by like Russian uh like forces uh and on the eighth floor it was um kind of torture room. It was called NKVD. You know it was in Soviet during Soviet times. Yeah, it was like and it was really written NKVD.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

So they're not even hiding it, they're just for me.

SPEAKER_03 16:35

No, no, no, they didn't hide, there were like some portraits of Stalin. Oh my god. So for me I realized oh fucking shit, we just we have to stop it. Otherwise we'll all live in this hell and this shit like in the Soviet Union and even maybe worse than Soviet Union and uh yeah, and after like um when I saw uh that like that that this scale like was like spreading of of this like Russian movement and they received uh weapons from Russia, like troops were coming from Russia. I realized that it could really spread uh in like eastern Ukraine and that my hometown, uh home city, the Parisia could be also part of it. So for me it was really really frightening. It was like a red signal that uh we had a big big big danger. It was not clear for everybody in Ukraine, I have to say. It was not so much clear for many people in Western Ukraine and like uh and and when I was in captivity I was interrogated by a Russian officer, and while uh Western media were telling oh there are no no no Russians, Russian like officers or like Russian military officials, but they were there, they were just hiding. Um yeah, so I realized like uh how serious it is and uh but still like we managed to you know to to stop this cancer on like some like limited territory. We lost like part of our territories, we lost uh our people and uh yeah but but we managed to for for like certain period of time to to localize it like there and uh yeah it's full-scale invasion it was like just uh widespread and uh maybe we didn't do also enough to uh to prepare for this. Um like we I mean like state and uh government and um yeah because NATO NATO reason is just bullshit. It's like uh Putin will always find any reasons. Uh it's uh he doesn't need to be like even Russian, just like whatever he wants to say, he would say and he will pretend. Like they are like uh such uh professional good liars, and uh I mean uh I don't know how people can still still believe in this uh like reason as a as a NATO. Um it was uh so logical, like we look back how everything happened in 2014, like uh that some moment it would happen with like uh bigger like part of Ukraine and yeah it happened with all Ukraine. But so but of course uh because I I was on the front line uh at the beginning of uh uh Russian aggression in Donbass and after I was uh on the front line as a soldier in 2022. So of course it was a big difference. Uh it was much, much more like intensive with the full-scale war to be on the front line. Like of course, like one night uh on the front line, like uh I would say in Harkiv region uh in May it was uh uh intensive as hell and I don't remember such an intensive days uh on the front line 2014. Like one night we had like uh everything like flying on us, like everything absolutely, like artillery, like helicopter shooting, like tanks and phosphorus, like chemical things, like everything like this I never experienced uh before. Even I spent a lot of time on the front line and 2014, 2015, and I was filming there a lot. Um yeah, so uh of course we cannot compare the like intensity of it, but um yeah, but there are of course also a lot of like connections um between yeah, thank you for giving that kind of I mean no, I know it's really difficult to do it in a short amount of time because there's so much history and so much that has happened, I mean 10 years now basically.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Um but I want to move on to your most recent film, Traces, because it uncovers quite a lot of this. Why did you give it the name Traces?

SPEAKER_03 21:39

It's ha it's happened like uh uh when I arrived in Herson region right after uh liberation from Russian uh forces, Russian army, I saw traces of this occupation everywhere. And traces of war, traces of aggression everywhere. It was like burning fields, it was like holes in the houses, like uh destroyed like schools, destroyed houses, like uh like dead animals and uh and uh like graffiti which Russians left uh on the like buildings and the doors and uh but you also see kind of uh wounded people and some wounds were kind of invisible wounds. Um so you feel that you are on the territory full of traces, visible and invisible traces of this war, this aggression, and uh and also traces of traumas. It was working title. I thought that maybe we'll change it later. It was just the first feeling what I felt uh when I arrived uh there and it's like from where we started to film and to work uh uh on this like documentary film. And documenting war war crimes.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

And as I was watching it, I there was a lot of um you used a lot of nature and you know, um, what's it called? Uh focusing on on the the trees and then how it's how it was growing and then how it was burning and how it slowly kind of burnt out, but also at the end it it finished with what I felt was quite hopeful in terms of sunflowers um blossoming in a way from from a place when they weren't. But did you use those images intentionally and if so like what the connection to the nature was as well?

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Oh thank you for the question.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

No, it's actually uh it started uh more um I would say um not intentionally. I just I I just wanted to uh show the reality and the atmosphere around. I started to look for visual language also for the film because I first I decided not to film uh the testimonies, I not to film the interview, I only recorded sound, and I at the same time I started to look for visual language because I didn't want to have this like just talking heads and direct testimonies. I wanted to build something bigger, something deeper, and uh and and I and I started to look a lot uh uh in the nature and like I mentioned before I also saw these burning fields and this like kind of nature which also uh was surviving after this like traces of war. And uh so it was the first thing and uh second because for Irina for the main character of uh Traces uh for her nature was something absolutely essential in her life. Uh she lost her garden and bus in 2014 because her town was occupied by Russians and like Russian forces uh she lost everything after captivity, so and she recreated the garden in Kiev region in the new uh place. Um and uh and I was thinking a lot about this connection uh of uh like like lost land and and how to to find again uh your roots, how to find again this connection with the land. And then the third thing, I I actually was thinking about this um stages of going out of trauma. There are four stages, it's like four seasons, and uh and the second stage called melting stage, and I and I and for me it became something metaphorical that like and maybe uh it could be very interesting way to try to find this like connection between the seasons and recovery after trauma, and because it's recovery of people, but it's also recovery of nature because uh how fields were like deminded and house where all like seeds were like uh like were like growing up and this kind of burned land uh and uh and like when I talked with mefodivna with one of the characters of Tracy, 75 years old uh uh teacher uh from uh uh village, uh small village in her son region. When she came back to her village, she said that the first thing she did that uh she started to put garlic to grow uh grow garlic in this land. And for me it was so beautiful thing that it's like it's kind of giving back life to this like earth, like uh ground land, and uh uh yeah, so there were a lot of uh signs and symbols in this, and I started to see them more and more and more. I started more spontaneously, and after I found so many layers in this like dramaturgical arc uh with the nature and in this visual language, uh so I started to dive more and more and more in this language.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

No, I really I I love that aspect of it because I think you know, and it's the nature is part of a country's like land as well, and it's what I really liked about it was that you know it was burnt, but then also, and as you said with trauma, but then also as survivors were coming together, it was also the the land was also growing back um because with SEMA, right, which is the the group that you that was was Irina founded, right? Can you tell me more about that? Was that part of the planning of creating this documentary, or did it kind of just fall into place as you were doing it?

SPEAKER_03 28:57

It's a long story behind, like it's a really long story, no, because after I survived um uh captivity and sexual violence and captivity uh in uh spring uh 2014 I couldn't speak about this experience especially of sexual violence to anybody, to my family or friends. I oh it's it's not only because like I felt ashamed. I actually felt a bit guilty. That's kind of I I took risk and like it was my fault. I didn't want to put this kind of burden on my like close people that they will be suffering also to like because I like survived this. So I decided okay, I will be silent and like somehow I will like overcome. But it's of course it's never it's never happened like this, and we all know that like to start to work with trauma you have to speak out, and you have to speak out also it's with yourself at least. Like, and I was like trying to I just put it in this dark uh uh you know shelf somewhere like uh inside myself, and like okay, it's it didn't happen. And uh and uh at some moment uh I went to I participated to uh documentary experimental documentary theater. They're working a lot uh also with like reality, with the real stories, with also personal things, and uh and that's uh how I started to uh think about uh what happened to me and maybe transform it first at least into text and uh and after uh with the support of people from the team from the theater, we created a documentary experimental performance about my experience of captivity and also sexual violence. Uh and that's kind of opened the door to my memory, and like it was the first time when I wrote everything I survived and like and we made this performance. And since this performance uh I've been contacted by some NGOs who were documenting uh war crimes and uh particularly uh also conflict-related sexual violence crimes, and when I gave my testimony, uh actually uh they say that I was the first woman speaking publicly about uh uh conflict-related sexual violence in Ukraine. Uh and thanks to this testimony, Irina founded me later and invited for uh this first meeting of um survivors uh of conflict-related sexual violence in Ukraine. And this was the beginning also uh of a journey to races because uh from the we had like two days, uh we spent two days together, we had like two days of meetings, discussions, what we can do together. We were 15 uh women who had a different background, we like what uh our connection was that we survived like uh torture, sexual violence, captivity in Donbass. The rest things were like just like you know, we were different people, different age, and we were like trying to understand how we can become community, or maybe how we can become organization, what will be our activities, what we can do together, what we'll be advocating, what we'll be fighting. And from the very beginning we are talking a lot about uh importance of preserving memory and that uh maybe like documentary film can be this uh instrument, this uh tool for advocacy for but also for like saving memory and saving these stories of survivors and but I was very much afraid to to to work to start um work on this uh film. I knew I realized that it will be a very heavy uh thing, that it will also bring me back to my memory, to my traumas, it will be a really re-traumatizing thing. So I was like I was uh not ready and I didn't have enough maybe bravery, bravery inside myself. So I was like postponing this. I I realized that it could be important, but I was really not ready. And after full-scale invasion started, and uh and we saw even wider scale of violence uh including sexual violence, uh there were a lot of stories in all villages, uh villages and uh in Kla Kiv region, for example, after the occupation, um the liberation. And uh we just uh realized I realized that I have to sacrifice my like personal trauma to amplify voices of my sister survivors or like voices of others and uh and the decision to start to work on this film, it was a collective decision. It was uh uh taken uh taken inside our community. We had a board uh members uh meeting and we had this opportunity to receive a small grant for documenting crimes against humanity and uh yeah, and we decided to use this grant for like starting uh documentary film traces.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

Why do you think um documenting crimes against humanity is really important?

SPEAKER_03 35:20

Because uh it's also fundament for justice. We cannot uh achieve any justice if we will not preserve all like uh all the memories and uh all the testimonies uh for crimes. And it's uh it's very important uh because uh it's also um important for recognition that these crimes happen to these people who are talking about these crimes. And and this is like also one of the the next stage from after like documentation you go to recognition, from recognition you go to justice. Like uh so for me it's uh on on this level if we are talking about not about like um art or things like but this documentation is is important for our fight for justice.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

And when you were also um you know coming up with was there any because obviously it's a really personal, like you said, what the experience and and people can get re-traumatized. Was there any talk of people not wanting to get involved, or were all the women that that were involved really, you know, wanting to to get their sort of the story out? Because you know, watching it, it's I like the way that you didn't do it like as interviews, that it was very you know, you were there with them, but not like in a way so I don't know how to explain this, but it was like observing a conversation, that's what it felt like, which which I think made it more personal also.

SPEAKER_03 37:09

Yeah, it was a very complex process because I even cannot separate the film or work on the film from my activity as a member of SEMA or as a like human rights activity. It was somehow it was all together, it it went everything together, and uh Irina uh was the main character of Traces. We now it we have like seven years working together. So and uh uh she started to document war crimes uh right after liberation of Kiev region. So she went there, she documented war crimes, she identified uh some women survivors of contemporary sexual violence, and after we decided to start to work on this documentary, uh we went together with Irina to her son region, and it also like uh through her that we were contacting uh women, we were documenting um war crimes, it was not like we arrived to make a film, you know, it was never like this. We arrived as a representative from survivors-led organization, and this also always went as a first like thing, and when we were even like talking with uh with the survivors, we were saying it as a first thing, and after we were saying that but we also uh we started to make a documentary film, and uh we really want to like preserve this memory, we want to document war crimes, we want to use this film as a kind of tool to fight for justice and uh to amplify voices of survivors to also fight against like silence and stigma. So but but first it was like just uh like conversation between like survivors, survivor and survivor. Uh it was not like this director survivor, director character. It was not like this. And in it was an important way to build relationships and uh with uh all like uh all survivors and with the time they also became uh uh members of SEMA. They became advocates also for for their rights and for the rights for rights of other survivors. Uh they became human rights activists as well, like after some time, and at the moment I was still filming, like, but but we were working together as as a like equal members of semi-Ukraine. So it's like you know, it was not something like uh oh, I arrived to make film about this topic. No, it was like it was part of my work, just like it became more like uh like um, yeah, it also became a film as a part of it. Uh uh yeah, and um of course for some uh women uh uh they were more open and they wanted to speak out and like they wanted to like, yeah, I will I will talk about all these war crimes, I will talk, I will tell about what I survived and about all the torture. But some women it was more like complicated to be so open, or like even not to be so open, but also to uh to to realize the importance of being part of the film or what film can like how film can work. Like it was not clear for for like every everybody from the beginning. So it was very different and it was very individual uh journey for for for each for each woman. And uh for Nina, for example, the woman who appeared like later that we documented like uh it was uh also by accident that uh actually she contacted uh one of our members and she said that she is ready to give uh her testimony. And uh but I saw her in very bad uh psychological state and uh her house was bombed. I was not really sure even that this scene will be in the film. I filmed it, I filmed even mainly hands, uh, I didn't know uh so it also took one year that she agreed and she she realized that it's important and she went during this year, she went through rehabilitation uh programs, she covered uh like um after after what she survived. Also, we managed to help her uh with um uh like furniture for her new small house, it's hard to call it house, it's like um yeah, building kind of um yeah, so yeah, it it was a process and um and I have to say uh it's important detail that at the beginning when we started to work on this film, I thought that it maybe it will be short film or middle-length film, and I thought that this film will be mainly built on testimonies. Uh I didn't know if uh it will be like life of like uh like many characters during two years, but somehow or like organically it's it worked like this, and just at some moment I realized okay, it's not anymore short film, it's not anymore just uh based on testimonies. I was actually following lives uh of all characters. We don't see it in the film really fully, but uh because you know after you you have to edit and you have to cut a lot of things, but but I follow lives of all characters. Like and uh in the first rough cut version it was three hours film with like two years of lives of like each uh women. Um yeah, so it was a kind of process uh and it was a real process of recovery of like each of them, and it was a real process of like activity of our organization during these like two and a half years.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

But you really see that with the relationships that are built as well, because you can really see the connection and trust within the group as well, which I think.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

also what's beautiful from it in the end as well especially because it ends with you know being at one of the summer events as well so yeah I just it it's just it's very warming after listening to everything that they went through because it's it's heartbreaking when you you know someone that I could see as as my grandma for example talking about the things that she experienced is just it's it's just imaginable to be honest like there's obviously like an increasing recognition globally of sexual violence being used in wars and conflict do you think that this is being used systematically in in war uh as as a as a uh weapon of war no but generally uh conflict floated sexual violence uh it's uh like one of the kind of ancient form yeah of suppressing like domination and like it's one of the most like extreme form of suppressing people to control to like break resilience and um and it happened uh like um many in in many conflicts and wars because it's also it happened for example Democratic Republic of Congo where it's like an inner war yeah or it happened uh in the like yugoslavian uh war and like with bosnian women when like uh it's like Serbs Serb soldiers like were like massively like uh raping uh bosnian women or in Kosovo so it it's uh it happened many many times in in our like world world history unfortunately and uh and at the same time uh it's also one of the most uh stigmatized and uh one of the most silent uh crime because uh for for for people it's really hard to start to speak speak out about this and uh it was not like exceptional in Ukraine like Russia is really systematically using sexual violence as a weapon of war in Ukraine and we can like talk about the same patterns for example in all all all places which were occupied by by Russians like I region you could say the Kharkiv region or like uh uh Herson Herson especially Herson region because it was the longest like occupation there we could see uh uh cases of uh sexual violence and also all like all the like almost uh in all all cases of uh conflict related sexual violence we see also torture. Almost all people who survived CRSV they also survived torture and now we have um uh statistics from uh UN monitoring mission uh that uh 90% uh of prisoners of war both civilians and uh uh military personnel in uh places of detention in like Russia or occupied territories survived uh 90% survived different forms of uh uh tortures including sexual violence so for for Russia it's uh sexual violence is one of the forms of torture and it's absolutely normal form for Russia. Uh you know last year they withdrew them the same self from Convention against torture which can actually confirm that uh torture for them is uh so much normalized so yeah we can we can just see uh it uh easily through statistics that uh yeah it's uh it's being used and it's continue like being used uh as a as a sexual violence as a weapon of war uh in Ukraine.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

Yeah thank you for for sharing all of that obviously it's a really it's a very touchy and deep topic and yeah I really appreciate you you s telling me more about it.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

I'm gonna move on to your other um film my dear Teo which is I don't want to say more personal but because it's about it's to your son isn't it so it's a different kind of personal what made you want to document your experience of being on the front lines for your son no at the beginning of Full Scale Invasion I actually felt uh that I kind of died as a filmmaker director you can like uh cinema became nonsense for me it's it lost any sense it's like what you can do with your camera how you can protect uh like your family how you you can defend your country for me it's like I don't know somehow I died as a director inside myself and it's like uh and uh I gave a promise to myself uh uh at the beginning of Russian aggression and Donbass in 2014 that if this war will grow and became like widespread that I I will go to to to fight um as a soldier. It happened so to be honest at the beginning I didn't think that I will film anything on the front line. When I joined this volunteer unit of like assault brigade I was like I didn't think about like like filming but after I started to think about memory not about film as a film but just uh video as a form of memory and especially I started to think for this about this memory for my son because you you think if you will die what your son will will be rem like will remember about you and I started to think a lot about it and I was four years old when I went to Frontline and I found a way like to make a small video diary for him film little bit our like routine life and as a way to preserve in memory for him. So if I would die he will have at least something about me and at the same time I started to write letters for him to the future because still what you can it was it's not easy to speak with a four years old boy or five years old boy about serious things. And I wanted to say for him something more existential like maybe give him some answers when he will be adult enough to understand these answers why I went to fight why it was important in case I won't be with him. So it was the way to you know to save some like heritage for my son and I I didn't think it will become a film. I didn't think that I will transform it into film yeah just after I came back from from the frontline and I even didn't watch what I filmed I didn't read what I what I wrote I survived but after my brothers in arms started to die just one after another and all all of them had children all almost the same age as my son Teo and I started to think about maybe transformation of what I managed to to film to to write that maybe this film can become a breach of memory between us parents who went to fight and our children and that maybe this film can talk about something like emotional and intimate and something also universal that we all children after watching this can understand what the parents went through emotionally also on the frontline because we can watch a lot of videos from frontline action event that but actually also important what how we were feeling and what our like existential layer so I I started to to work on this film more as trying to transform something personal into something universal that's and that I can it this one can be become also testament for my brothers in arms who died and who didn't have have time to say last words to their children like wrote letters and yeah for me it was more more about this and until the last day of the editing I didn't believe that I I managed to make this film because there were there were not a lot of footage I filmed me it was something very spontaneous something small because I was not filming for film so it was no like this dramaturgical arc in it so actually we we like film build it more with with the letter so letters become this dramaturgical arc so yeah it was and it was very painful process of the editing because I had to watch some with my friends who died and um yeah it was um it was not easy.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

And the other thing that's quite powerful and it you know is the the there's a lot of moments of stillness right because I I guess that in front lines there's a lot of moments where you sit and wait until you go and act. So it was really interesting to see you know like you said what the thoughts and the processes or even like doing yoga you know trying to do some normalization and again one of the scenes where you where where one of your um one of the soldiers was on on FaceTime with his family doing yoga together again it's just like a moment of making it light although I know that probably what he was thinking was a lot more deeper but making it light for the for the kids I think you know capturing those kind of moments that you just wouldn't even think of uh on a on a front line because you're still living life right even or celebrating Easter for example with with stuff so yeah I it was just so powerful to see those everyday type moments so yeah it was just yeah it was very as I watched it yesterday and it just made me very emotional the whole the whole time.

SPEAKER_03 56:00

When we watched when we like finished I think the first cut with my editor Kaisa and we watched it and we like was probably one of the most tender feelings about soldiers and uh yeah because it's yeah for me it's also full of like light and tenderness and and I think it's it's important because it's really showing human face of like Ukrainian soldiers because who went to fight in my unit there were like not so much like professional soldiers there were like people like me who had just some totally different profession who never had a dream to become a superhero soldier and and it's it's very important um I think to talk from this perspective and also destigmatize like army to destigmatize soldiers because I think still I can feel in like Western Europe you still feel the stigma people really oh soldiers like you know the image of soldiers something bad and and it's still like some even unconsciously I don't know consciously or not consciously it's it's it's it it's it exists I like I like uh I had a screening in Austria of my dirtel and after the screening one young boy came to me like the young because he's 18 years old and he said that oh I didn't I didn't watch anything from Ukrainian war about army I'm super anti-militarist like leftist and like but you know but after watching like uh your film I actually realized that I was totally wrong because like that he he absolutely like changed his mind and like and I saw there are a lot of people who still think oh army is bad it's something very negative it's like oh it's better of course to like uh to uh to fight with unicorns and uh you know um uh yeah like you know like sometimes like if you have to defend your country you cannot defend it with flowers like well especially if you're getting attacked by an aggressive state yeah but but at the same time we are still just human beings like and we didn't choose this way we didn't want really really go and become soldiers and leave our as our families and to go sit uh in minus um uh I don't know ten in the in in the like whole uh yeah you know it's it was not uh my dream so and uh so yeah for me it was very important to to to to show this humanity in in us and uh to break this stigma and to show this love and like friendship and uh yeah and because it was also uh love uh was um kind of the strongest uh uh power power bank for for us to to keep uh fighting uh to to like to survive uh actually because you need to to hold on something beautiful uh something like light and uh this love for our children it was this uh saving stick uh and I wanted to talk about this and about uh yeah from this perspective of parents perspective being soldier and also realizing that uh if you would die it's not when your parent mother or father it's your death is not only your death for yourself your death is also death for your child so you will disappear for your child so it means you will die twice you will die as you and you will die for your child who will grow up without like you and uh and and this make big big difference and um um yeah this will make you much to be much more responsible for your life do you think your whole experience um as a as a frontline soldier um changed you as a filmmaker I don't know if you want to say I don't know no I I I really no of course it changed me as a person uh in a different ways and um and we are still living in this whirlpool of like we are still living in war so you know it's like uh you you are inside transformation all the time it's like uh it's a constant transformation it's like you are living next to black hole and black hole which is like like uh kind of distorting I could say distorting everything time and space and yourself and like somehow um yeah so as a filmmaker I think after frontline it's um I started no I had this feeling before of course as a as a documentary filmmaker that um uh I don't like this kind of concept art for art um but it became more clear for me after Frontline I would never make film just you know beautiful film like you know like there is this expression like art for art like art is like I think like cinema is also an act of like act of like resistance yeah like act of resistance or like it's it's something like it's a it's about responsibility it's like what you are saying your word it's not just I would say what I think oh it's in my interest in reflection it's something it should be something meaningful and you have to feel full responsibility for it I don't know I it's so uh yeah I think frontline changes like not even changed this perception but made it more stronger for for myself like I will think like uh 10 times before I start to make film I would make not make film just oh because it's okay I can I can make film about this oh let's let's do this like uh yeah you just feel like stronger responsibility for like what are you uh making what are you creating like like it can be cinema or it can be other things it's uh yeah kind of as a as a as a tool for something bigger right to to kind of I guess put light on something in a way and carry that forward so people see something greater from from it from the experience uh yeah but you know like we all uh filmmakers probably now became also uh act like actors in the uh culture diplomacy sector you know like advocates and uh so it's it it became culture becoming uh uh part of general like like policy like I don't know like uh and all the diplomacy and all the influence and joke also geopolitical like map and so it's it's not something separate like because everything matters each word matters and each film matters it's about balancing like uh uh like uh dark and darkness and lightness and about uh some like bad and good things so it's about this balance of the world and each each film or each book or like whatever it's it can be drop or this how to say this thing where you measure balancing scale there we go I guess scale yeah scale like you know when you put uh uh uh measure like things or like how to say uh yeah I think it is a measuring scale something like that when scale yeah so so everything what we do it's not just oh because yeah I want to do something beautiful no it's it's something like more me it should be something meaningful and it shouldn't be something like uh bigger and it should be it should be this job for like lightness more like lightness in in our world uh otherwise we could see with all this like political geopolitical situation we we we won't survive uh as a like um democratic civilization like uh so just yeah it's uh it's becoming more and and more I think like um absorbing even uh now general like um like wider the scale of cinema I sometimes I will feel angry when I watch film which has no sense in it or just you know some kind of something which you cannot grab I mean it's like you know like you you really now I I have feeling that I I need to feel film some more like deeper sense from the film and it can be like it's not about political sense but like kind of like social socially important uh things uh it should be yeah because like you said it's filmmakers do have a responsibility from what you want to show and the message you want people to see in comment sometimes it's not very clear but sometimes that's the reason for you to figure it out and that also gives meaning. Yeah it doesn't mean that it should be yeah it doesn't mean it should be manifest it's like not not that I'm saying but um yeah because there are some films which which become almost like political manifest and it's also bad because it still should should like contains like uh this like artistic elements and creativity and like uh and deepness and like symbolism and like things but but uh but at the same time essentially it should be something meaningful uh as a like heart of this like message of the film or like socially important like uh and uh like yeah um thank you so much for for giving me a whole um insight into all your work because as I said they they speak a lot like like you said with the messaging stuff like I felt it physically impact me um so I would really encourage people to just to watch them I know Tracy's is doing its festival run at the moment isn't it um so hopefully that will be out somewhere for everyone else to to watch soon.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:24

So yeah thank you so much. Yeah thank you