And They Will Talk About Us

When I was filming „Postcards From Ukraine“, I was realising that I was finding myself in a very crucial moment in world’s history. The country left the Russian sphere of influence and, like an asteroid, started to gravitate around our axis for what concerns values, history, economy. After the success of the „Maidan uprising“ in 2014, the country’s path to the westernisation accelerate very rapidly. A stunning phenomena for my eyes to observe. What was previously perceived as legitimate in news or advertising was no longer legitimate, and vice versa. Podol became the hip district of the city and bars and clubs decuplicate. The only force contrasting this hedonistic and consumeristic trend became nationalism that was highly regarded and advertised massively through news, billboards and the cinema. Added to this, there were the leftovers of the soviet mentality, still more alive than anywhere else in eastern Europe (with the possible exception of Belarus). To complete the picture, the country was opening itself to the free market and a new generation of entrepreneurs were rising. The new principles of marketing spread throughout the country. This situation, highly explosive in many ways, has been lived by the young generation with excitement and curiosity. They felt they were making history. It was the generation that survived the nineties, when Ukraine and Russia were in the hands of criminal gangs. They have been through the Orange Revolution, the Maidan Revolution, the kidnappings (a deja vu of the stalinist era) and even the war in the East. They were (and are) strong. Even if mixed with war, danger, warped ideologies and naive tales of material success, it was difficult for me not to be contaminated by that energy. A kind of atmosphere that I perceived when I was watching some Italian movies from the Sixties, first of all „il Sorpasso“ by Dino Risi. That movie in particular superbly described a similar (although less tragic) transition. I wanted to represent that feeling, but this time avoiding a choral story with many characters like I did in my first documentary „Postcards From Ukraine“. I wanted to focus on the two I knew, who I knew would be comfortable being filmed a second time. They were Sergey and Anna. The first is an entrepreneur in military tourism; facilitated by Ukraine's permissive laws, his brand „Adventure Tours in Ukraine“ became one of the leaders in that market. The other was Anna, an artist who was kidnapped by pro-russian separatists in Donetsk in May 2014, and who now became a nationalist and a volunteer. I wanted to tell something about those post revolution times through them. In order to live their lives in the way they imagined, they became extreme. Pushing the boundaries of what is permitted and whatnot, Sergey trying to control it through his actions and his power, Anna letting herself to be overwhelmed by it. But both constantly challenging themselves. Their stories are put in a constant relation. I hope the film will live in the space between them, where lies my attempt to describe the spirit of times in Ukraine.

I filmed them for years with the attitude of being curious and open to whatever new ideas or experiences they would embark on. I did not know at the beginning of the film that Sergey would be successful with his small business, just as I could not foresee that he would go into crypto monetary systems.
The same applies to Anna; when I was with let on the train from Sievierodonetsk to Kyiv, I could not predict that she would meet and fall in love with Lyosha and fall in love with him. This totally changed her story, as she stopped organising a children's festival and moved to Kyiv with her new lover. However, I preferred to follow those moments rather than focusing on a particular narrative. I think this is more reflective of what it is like to live in Ukraine, a country where everything can change at any moment.

Almost a year after the Russian invasion, the film witnesses the so-called post-Maidan-revolution years, which have been overshadowed by the recent historical events.