This film follows three groups of friends in Ukraine during the summer of 2024.
There are Dima and Sasha, a gay couple fleeing the bombings of Kiev for a weekend in the countryside; Natalia and Dmytro, young artists trying to maintain their youth and avoid conscription gangs; and finally, there's Nikita—a wild ex-sailor and jazz pianist, recently returned from the front, who must try to rebuild his life on the war-torn streets of Odessa.
DIRECTOR'S NOTES
Just turn on the news and you see the image of Ukraine that most of the world knows: GoPro footage of fighting; an elderly woman burying her son in a village church; a vast city, like Mariupol, completely reduced to rubble.
For most viewers with no personal connection to Ukraine, these images are startling, but they're hard to relate to; they look and sound like news. They don't convey what it feels like to be in a war zone: the moments of boredom, fear, and joy between bombings.
I made this film to try to capture what my friends really feel behind the TV screen, to give a more complete picture of the alternative reality that life in Ukraine has turned into.
The film follows Nikita, a 28-year-old jazz musician turned soldier, along with his friends and acquaintances in Kiev and Odessa during the long, hot summer of 2024. The film was shot on a shoestring budget, with a one-man crew, and with no help from anyone except my family and friends, and it made it to the screen. It's my first documentary.
My goal was to show what the war in Ukraine looks like on an individual level. I think it's something completely different, a film full of heart and hope, unlike anything you'll find on the news channels.
– Henry Worsley
