DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

“From the very beginning I was trying to find the core topic of the film, because as you can imagine, at the beginning of the war the process of shooting was very chaotic. In the first months of the invasion, everything felt dangerous and unpredictable, and you didn’t know where you could get access to film. The rules of reality had changed; it was all danger and chaos everywhere. I’d say I found the film’s essence when the chaos of war calmed down slightly; when you found yourself amidst a society that has already started to adapt to war, including yourself. I understood that I wanted to transform this very experience of adjusting to a horrible reality—one you didn’t choose yourself but have to accept nevertheless—into images. Also, when you’re starting to edit, you need something concrete: there was this desire to keep and to show this transformation that I also have been part of as we [Ukrainians] try to cut the bonds with the Soviet past. There is one scene in the film that shows it visually, through a statue, but I don’t want to spoil it. It’s one example of how editing has helped me to translate a particular idea into visuals, in the ways of cinema.”

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Olha Zhurba