Ukrainian director Olga Stuga made an impassioned plea for her new project, which tells how families are split by the terrible decisions they have to make as a result of the war in Ukraine, whether to stay and be part of the struggle or leave and seek safety (and offer support to others) beyond Ukrainian borders.
When the Russian military invaded Ukraine in early 2022 Stuga’s father Valery, a 60-year old anaesthetist approaching retirement, decided to stay and work on the ‘second line,’ treating the victims of war. His wife Toma left her house and precious garden in Ukraine to live with her daughter and children in Portugal, and to help look after her grandchildren.
Director Stuga herself decided to forego her idyllic life in the French countryside that she shared with her husband in order to record the war in her home country, and her father’s role in it. “I leave my little paradise and travel to Ukraine,” she explained to the Krakow professional audience. Stuga doesn’t know when, or indeed if, she will return.
Her film is very much a labour of love, and of duty. She is producer, director and DOP, with an editor yet to be decided upon. The proposed running time is 75 minutes, and she has raised €13,900 of the project’s €137,900 budget. Conformed partners are Docudays UA and the Deutsche Filmakademie. The expected delivery date is August 2024.
Stuga’s family was offered a period of respite in Portugal when they were able to spend a week together, but the end of that holiday marked a line for her parents as they had to decide whether to return to Ukraine, stay in Portugal, or remain separated to perform their own duties. “With the war in the background, the film focuses on my parents’ bond in the face of danger and distance,” says Stuga.
These are decisions that folk should never have been forced to make, argues Stuga, and questions whether correct decisions were even possible during such a time of crisis. “When the war erupted in 2022, we all made instinctive decisions. We didn’t think much. We were guided by – I don’t know – by the fear, by the tension, by people who surrounded us. In this film, I want to give time and space to reconsider those choices by realizing the consequences of them on us and on the ones we love. And as I strive to understand the perspectives of my parents, I’m coming back to my own dilemma.”
“I try to understand myself what to do. My husband has been waiting for me in France for a year. I must decide to come back to him and live the life we had, or stay in Ukraine and continue being a voice that tells our Ukrainian stories.”
“So far I’ve been working on this project alone, an intimate story I’ve been developing with the support of Docudays UA and Deutsche Filmakademie. I feel right now is the right moment to open the door and to [find] a producer, and to welcome partners to boost the production of this film,” she ended.
