Experiencing Interruptions?

This light will be for a long time

Built from a digital archive of hand-held camera and phone footage, this diary film reflects on the first months of 2022, when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. Filmed along the way, the material lay dormant until the author—displaced from Russia—resettled in a new city for the first time in many months and was finally able to look back. Revisiting not only her own recordings but those made by friends, the film unfolds as a collective memory: fragmented, non-linear, shaped by fleeing, longing, and the search for a foothold. A personal and political reflection on time, loss, and the fragile act of remembering.

  • Anna Pronina
    Director
  • Anna Pronina
    Writer
  • Anna Pronina
    Editor
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    34 minutes 27 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 25, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    150 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Russian Federation
  • Country of Filming:
    Armenia, Germany, Montenegro, Russian Federation, Turkey
  • Language:
    Russian
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Anna Pronina

Anna Pronina is a filmmaker, media artist, and social educator working at the intersection of experimental documentary, diary film, performance, and collective practice. Her work explores trauma, exile, and shifting identities shaped by political events and collective memory in the post-Soviet space. She combines personal narratives with broader social inquiry, often collaborating with artists, researchers, and journalists.
Anna has contributed as a filmmaker and photographer to human rights and independent journalism projects in Russia. Her collaborative works have been shown internationally, including at Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (2023), ZK/U Berlin (2022), MIEFF (2021), and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2021).

Since 2022, she has lived in Berlin, where she co-founded Play! Berlin e.V., a nonprofit supporting refugee children from different countries through art, education, and psychological care.

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Director Statement

This film emerged from a period of deep rupture—when fleeing my home country became a necessity, and looking back felt impossible.
Only later, nearly a year after my departure I was able to revisit the images recorded during those first months—not only my own, but also those made by friends who shared that uncertain transition. I didn’t set out to make a film at the time, but the archive we unintentionally created became a space for reflection: on exile, memory, and the fragile process of making sense after dislocation.
In this film, I explore how personal memory and collective experience intertwine, and how returning to an archive can be both painful and necessary—to understand where I am now and what might still be possible. As with much of my practice, it is grounded in collaboration, vulnerability, and the belief that careful attention—both inward and outward—is essential.
Our memories are shaped by internal and external forces that seem to have a life of their own. The frames remain the same, but what else becomes visible?