Directed by Ivan Sautkin • Documentary • 2024 • 86 minutes
Through its two parallel plotlines, the film follows the exploits of a volunteer evacuation team in the front lines of Eastern Ukraine, led by young, precociously stoic Anton, as well as the wartime daily lives and unlikely friendship of two elderly women – pragmatic Zinaida and dreamy, starry-eyed Taisia – who decided to stay at their homes in the now de-occupied Chernihiv region. While Anton faces the most visceral horrors of war on a daily basis during his team’s urgent, desperate attempts to rescue the most vulnerable, who are often reluctant or unwilling to leave, Zinaida and Taisia seek to pursue any forms of resistance within their power – from praying and writing poetry to hiding historic plaque and reporting intelligence to the Ukrainian military.
A piece of cinéma verité, the film explores the complex dynamics of rescuing and preserving in the most trying of times – not only lives and physical land but faith, hope, memory, culture, one’s own humanity. As the plotlines ultimately interweave into a double helix, the line between the extraordinary self-sacrifices and at first glance futile, naïve, inconsiderable acts of resistance is blurred, inviting us to notice the indivisibly unified effort by the visible and invisible heroes in the making.
Up Next in New: Documentaries
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Rule of Two Walls
Directed by David Gutnik • Documentary • 2023 • 77 minutes
RULE OF TWO WALLS is an intimate look at the war in Ukraine, as seen through the eyes of Ukrainian artists who remained in their country to make art as a defiant act in the face of aggression.
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Far Out: life on & after the commune
Directed by Charles Light • Documentary • 2024 • 85 minutes
Far Out: Life On & After the Commune tells the story of two rural New England communal farms. The film traces fifty years in the lives of a group of New England writers, activists and artists. It conveys not only how these “hippies” tra...
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Outgrow the System
Directed by Cecilia Paulsson, Anders Nilsson • Documentary • 2023 • 58 minutes
"Change the system, not the climate" is a common demand in the climate movement. But what kind of system do we actually want? In the midst of humanity's worst crisis, there are pioneers standing ready. Meet the new ec...
