Newsletters
The exclusive trailer for Yuliia Hontaruk's documentary "To Die to Live" has been released following its world premiere at the 60th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The festival's website describes the project as “a quietly devastating film about the impossible task of making peace with death and the unrelenting desire to live.”
The documentary follows the stories and deep-seated traumas of three volunteer soldiers—Shakhta, Dancer, and Potter—who joined the Ukrainian army in 2014 to fight in eastern Ukraine. Although the horrific experiences of their two years on the front lines haunt them constantly, they attempt to transition back to civilian life. However, the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion forces them to confront the war once again.
“Twelve years ago, I followed three young Ukrainian volunteers to the frontline. I thought I was making a film about war. I was wrong,” director Yuliia Hontaruk notes in her statement. “When the Minsk agreements came and they returned home, I followed them back. And that is when the real film began. What I witnessed in the years that followed was a profound and painful journey.”
Hontaruk emphasizes that the true core of the documentary lies in its aftermath: “What began as a portrait of conflict became something I never expected: a film about transformation, about the long and difficult road back to oneself, about how stubbornly life insists on continuing even in the shadow of death. This is not really a film about war. It is about what war leaves inside people, and what they do with it.”
'To Die to Live' film trailer. (Video via Vimeo/Company of Steel)
Describing her documentary as a "delicate" but ultimately "life-affirming" project, Hontaruk noted the resilience captured on screen. "Because despite everything, despite all the loss and rupture and years of waiting, life has proven itself stronger than death," Hontaruk said. "Again and again, people choose it. That is the film I set out to make, even when I didn’t know it yet.”
Written and directed by Hontaruk, the Babylon's 13 production features cinematography by Denys Strashnyi, Yurii Gruzinov, and Hontaruk. The editing team includes Roman Liubyi, Ugis Olte, Mykola Bazarkin, Hontaruk, Iryna Stetsenko, Pavlo Zelenov, and Petro Tsymbal.
The documentary is produced by Hontaruk, Ivanna Khitsinska, Alexandra Bratyshchenko, Uldis Cekulis, Katarina Krnacova, and Ihor Savychenko.
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
1 min read
1 min read
