TEMPORARY SHELTER

When Ukrainian filmmaker Anastasiia Bortuali is displaced to Iceland, she documents her fellow refugees, capturing their fragility and strength against a dramatic backdrop of northern lights and volcanic eruptions.

An Ukrainian father in Iceland drives through a wintery landscape at night to reunite with his wife at the airport. His chatty young son asks from the back seat: where did the universe come from? Their charming dialogue sets the tone as the film portrays Ukrainian refugees trying their best to grapple with impossible questions.

Filmmaker Anastasiia Bortuali is driven by personal experience. She’s one of 6 million Ukrainians forced to flee from Russia’s invasion of her country. She and her family wound up with thousands of others in Iceland, taking temporary shelter in a former NATO base. Despite her modest resources, she skilfully wields her camera to document the fragilities and strengths of the refugees around her as they split their attention between wartime reports from home and adapting to a new world.

While the film is rooted in Ukrainian experiences, many moments express something universal about being dropped into a new culture. We watch the recent arrivals strive to learn a foreign language, seek employment, and snatch moments of joy from adversity.

Bortuali captures epic images of northern lights and volcanic eruptions along with intimate moments of people processing trauma and giving each other comfort. As the war continues with no end in sight, there will be countless angles for documentary films to take, from the front lines to corridors of power. Bortuali’s perspective comes from a geographical distance, but gets straight to the heart of our times.

THOM POWERS