Ben Goldhagen – Interview with Documentary Film Director about Russia’s Destructive War in Ukraine.

A documentary about the horrific and destructive war that is currently taking place in Ukraine. The film tells the true stories of Ukrainians who have been forced to flee their homes, lose loved ones, and live in fear for their lives. It is a story about the courage, strength of will, and resilience of the Ukrainian people…If you can, please send the link to a friend or two.

FILM:
To the Zero Line – Brave Hearts in Dark Hours
Director – Benjamin I. Goldhagen (2023) – 2h 26m
https://www.tothezeroline.com/

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In war, the mind gets focused on the essence of life. Family, friends, food, heritage, what you’ll fight for, what you might die to keep. The choices one makes each morning when the sun rises. To The Zero Line takes place during a time of war, during the full-scale invasion of a European country, Ukraine. At stake are the hospitals, churches, music, art, children, pregnant women, expectant fathers, against a force determined to murder all of it. Genocide. You experience the perpetual cycle of life of the invaded, the birth of two children, a wedding, death, the loss of a loved one, Soldiers in battle on the zero line, and back in the cities, towns, and villages each person has his or her own personal zero line. You experience people from outside the country flooding in to help in what ways they can. Each adding a small part to a big puzzle. If you’re in the UK, USA, Germany, or France, you might ask yourself, How am I so different? What would I do if death comes knocking on my door or my parents’ door or my school door or my church’s door. The film is an opportunity to think for yourself. Everybody in life is going to the Zero Line. The point of contact with your worst fears. Where the enemy is. Horrible hours, and brutal seconds. Where you need true friends and your best moments.
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Today I’m speaking to Ben goldhagen the director of to the zero line a film that came out this year of course we will put a link to it it’s an incredibly immersive experience uh and it follows a number of people through the war in Ukraine looking at the impact of their

Lives uh and giving you a real impression of what it’s like to both struggle on the home front but also fight on the front line we’re going to talk about the motivations behind the film the impact and of course its purpose and I’m delighted to be able to

Welcome Ben to the channel well thanks uh Jonathan I’m glad to be here well we we we hit record but we’ve had a a really fascinating chat before we hit the record button talking about the various motivations both for your film and of course me behind the channel and

So on um I think we both have actually similar motivations and that is a fear that we are actually living in very dark times and that if the evil of Russian aggression is not confronted that something far far worse may be awaiting Us in the coming years could you tell me

A little bit about your motivations for making the film and then we’ll give the audience a bit of description of what the film contains as well yeah sure um it’s it it started basically with the knowledge of History uh my brother is one of the world experts on the study of

Genocide and he’s written a great deal about it and uh my father’s a survivor of the Holocaust and we because we know what can happen historically when there is a genocidal campaign against the people h both in a personal way my family my father’s family and then also in uh in a

Sociological way in in a global way in the history of them it was pretty OB obvious that this is what was happening was about to happen uh in uh The fullscale Invasion uh which is a continuation from a hundred years back of a Russian campaign and uh I because of this

Awareness and because I have some ability when it comes to uh film making and I just made a film on survivors of the Holocaust um I realized that this was uh an opportunity for me to raise my hand and to uh make a film about the

People who are in the situation and The Rescuers um who are trying to help and uh help the people in the country uh from becoming basically the victims of what we call eliminationism what is also known as genocide and so that was my motivation behind it and so then that

Was that what started and then I had to figure out am I going to make a film then that’s so this is your is this your first film or attempt at making a film this is my first feature I’ve made uh and many shorts I uh wrote a a very odd

Film uh in the past and I worked in TV on TV shows but this is my first feature film and uh it must be a daunting challenge but what you’ve created is an absolutely unique experience I would say it’s a very immersive film that holds uh

A mirror up to reality in that way it’s quite sort of complex it doesn’t have the normal narrative tricks and techniques um but it has an extraordinary range of people and experiences in it um how does the finished film reflect the sort of vision you had when you were

Planning it well I I started out by uh wanting to create the experience for people of what it’s like to be there and in order to do that um in order to do that I it was necessary basically not to have voice over uh Frederick wisman

I’ve had many influences as far as film goes Frederick wisman is one of them who would just put the camera up and whatever happens in front of the camera is what you would see and it would be the experience of being there uh it and without going too much into like

Cinematic technique I I knew that I wanted the people of Ukraine the people in the film to be intimate with the audience and to do that I had to uh eliminate the concept of VoiceOver description anything else so that you really felt when you say immersive yeah

That’s that I really feel fantastic that you could say that because that was the intention from the start that the the someone anywhere in the world could feel like they’re actually there and that’s one of the problems listen this is one of the problems of propaganda It’s very effective at

Convincing you not to empathize with other people because somehow they are not like you they don’t have the same values and aspirations they don’t have the same language it’s you can put them out of your minds because they’re not like you and the situation has nothing

Akin to your life it also seems to me that your film challenges that because it shows people who are quite clearly living in a sophisticated a fluent it’s not hugely affluent but living in a sophisticated European country a sophisticated culture there’s a whole range of sort of emotions a lot of cultural references

Was it your conscious intention to try and de other the people of Ukraine yeah because um I’m somewhat of a I’m somewhat of a student of uh of media and I’ve worked in it all my life and also of uh of War uh and and how it’s

Portrayed and also of public uh public opinion uh because of my background and uh I knew that uh I I knew what I didn’t want to happen was that this would be a war like about a place somewhere else that people would feel that it’s so distant from them that it they couldn’t

Relate to it and that’s sort of like the war in Afghanistan even the Vietnam War for the United States um you know there most wars are over there and I wanted and and I wanted it to bring it home in a way for the UK audience the US

Audience the EU audience in particular for people outside um to be able to say yeah I’m just like them and like any good War film uh and the great ones um it’s really about much more than War it’s about the human condition and so in

Order for in and so in order to uh make that connection between someone in London or New York or uh in in uh anywhere basically in the west because it is really geared towards people in the west um they needed to feel that that the that the experiences of people

In UK that the people in Ukraine and the experien of the people in Ukraine are pretty much the same as in any other other country in the west so someone in Germany can identify with in France or you know more or less let’s not let’s I

Don’t want to go too crazy about that or and and the UK and us I mean there’s a commonality that we have but you Ukraine is Eastern Europe and seems like in it’s an a place that’s somewhere else far away and so I wanted to show the way it

Is which is very much like what you said it’s very much like the uh with the cafes and the churches and the people and the and even the mindset to a large degree of someone in in Paris or someone in in London or someone in in uh New

York City or Los Angeles and of course as we know I mean you’ve talked to many ukrainians I’ve interviewed many over the last two years and got to know a lot about Ukraine which I was relatively ignorant of before but there’s an interesting thing you point out here and

This is the aspiration of people they not only aspire to be European they feel European it almost feel like it’s their uh sort of Birthright to become part of Europe or even further than that they feel that they’ve always been part of Europe but they’ve somehow been sort of uh you know

Cut away from it Russia was very effective at throwing this giant sort of uh blanket over many countries uh and you know creating this Amnesia um in the world about their cultures their exist istance and their even their history uh that predated uh Russian occupation and Ukraine is

Perhaps suffered that more than anywhere else did you get that strong sense of this desperation to become part of you know the European and Global World well the for people in in Ukraine and I can really speak when I say people in Ukraine I the they’re uh on camera and

Behind the camera there were hundreds of ukrainians in this film involved in this film and I you know and I spent a good part of a year um living living all over Ukraine with all kinds of people uh in all kinds all different walks of life

And uh and I had sort of a dillian uh view which was that I was traveling and I had to study the country and understand what was going on now um as well as the history in order to be able to make a film like this because

It’s a very intimate film with the both individuals and with the country itself and so the the an the answer to that is overwhelmingly they Ukraine sees it’s the people in Ukraine see themselves as right now choosing the west and it’s a conscious Choice they’re willing to die

For it and they are dying for it to be in the west and the word that they use Freedom many people all the time say one woman uh said to me uh on camera she’s not that this is part is not in the film she said look I don’t have children yet

But I want my children to be free I want them to have freedom and so they see it’s two things going on one is that Russia wants to destroy their culture destroy their language kill them rape them destroy the Next Generation that’s the threat but what got them but up

Until this point the the desire has been and they’ve been moving not just moving to the W they’re of a western mind and so it’s it’s two things it’s they don’t want to lose their identity but they also see the future being uh being one of Civil Society in the western

Mold and of course Russia spews out lies some of those lies stick some of them more effective than others some are geared towards you know extreme left or extreme right or centrists I mean Russia is very good at creating this multi-layered falsehood and of course one of the really obvious ones um which

Actually has been perhaps less successful because most people see it for its absurdity not everyone I mean there are some people who unfortunately amplify and that is that Ukraine is full of Nazis um that Ukraine is a Banda worshiping Nazi Utopia and uh you know

The West is is is Reviving uh you know Nazi Germany of the 1930s that is literally what the propagandists say and yet in your film you’ve got uh Muslim volunteers you’ve got of Jewish Israeli volunteers uh you’ve got quite a diverse set of people from outside the country

Who’ve come in to support this idea of freedom and Liberation and you know when you visit Ukraine I I I I’ve done now you know a couple of hundred inter views and only one person mentioned Bandera and that was in a historical context quite a balanced cont no one mentions him or

Refers back to him uh unless it’s in the concept of deep history so how do you think your film what’s the impact of your film in helping to undermine some of these sort of absurd rhetoric of Russian propaganda well you know I wanted to show the country the way it is

You know and um and it not just the country I always have to say the people because it’s really about the people every every country is about it is composed of individuals and uh and so you know one obvious thing is Everyone likes to point out zalinsky is Jewish and they and so

They and and that’s that but uh I’m Jewish and so I can speak about my own experience um and that I went everywhere I I went everywhere every door was open pretty pretty much to me uh in the work that we did and there were a great number of Jewish

People especially Israelis at the beginning when the war was very hot um all over the country when it was unpredictable who went into Ukraine and also supported the refugees coming out of the Ukraine and because of this connection that uh many Jewish people have to uh this particular area because

This was the home homeland of so many who uh suffered who survived the Holocaust and died in the Holocaust and there’s a great respect for that in Ukraine uh amongst many people and uh and I really I I mean I I filmed a lot in churches and I said to um and and

There was nowhere there was nowhere being Jewish was ever problem at all for me and that’s uh that can’t be said of uh every part of the world at this point in time um and and and Russia certainly tries to weaponize doesn’t it um I would say historic tropes whether they are

Anti-semitic tropes um they use a lot of tropes about ukrainians which unfortunately work pretty well in in Russia but again your film doesn’t trade in the language of tropes it’s the language of reality um how you know it it’s there it’s out there you’re clearly working very hard

To promote it what do you think the impact is going to be and and how are you trying to get it in front of a wider audience well there are a few things one is that we uh it it’s streaming free on the internet and that was a conscious

Decision uh from the very start the the purpose of the film is the the main purpose of the film right now is for people in the west particularly to to be exposed to what’s going on on two sides um one is to understand the people and the genocidal Peril that that that that

Uh that they face and so uh it’s so it’s teered sort of like it’s teered the way that we’re rolling it out um the most uh the most interested people right off are going to be what I call Ukraine Fanatics those are the people who just can’t get

Enough of about what’s going on in Ukraine big supporters and they they become in a way the evangelists for what the film promotes um by telling other people about it and that’s actually starting to work out so there are people who are taking it to people in Washington I’m I’m not interested in

Everybody in the world seeing this film per se it would be nice but there is a goal behind it it’s a project and and um and so and and in order to to do that the people who are most are closest then become Advocates of it and that’s

Actually what’s happening and so like on a place like Twitter there are groups of people who are now taking up the film as a cause almost as uh as as something that they want to share with the people in their lives and the people in their

Groups and so from there I from so that so it’s it’s sort of it’s it’s going to take a little time to roll out but the first the first group is the people who are interested because they are and then the next one that seems to be uh responding are political people people

Who want to take it to people they know in Washington so that they so that they see it um and they become as a as a as a something to talk about and the third one uh and the and then the third one which is really really wonderful is that

It’s going to take off in Ukraine um and I really can’t talk about it yet but um the there there is a somewhat influential uh entity in Ukraine that’s dubbing it into Ukrainian um and for for showing across Ukraine and which was really probably the biggest compliment I

Could get um they contacted me immediately almost and they said we want to show this to everybody um because it’s a it it really shows the spirit of the country to the people and while we were making the film I constant because I’m not from Ukraine I constantly was

Asking did we get it right because we have so much Ukrainian culture in it we have so much Ukrainian mentality in it and I kept saying like are we getting it right is this like is this how it is and so many the people who work on it and

Many people in Ukraine say this is Ukrainian film uh even though it’s it’s obviously you know it’s obviously in the in the U of Western Cinema but is of it it has it shows the Ukrainian Spirit from the standpoint of Ukrainian that’s a great achievement because ukrainians are extraordinarily

Sensitive to the nuances of their culture um and of course there’s diversity isn’t there from across the country in different areas different regions from those that are majority Russians speaking to those that are you know if you’re able to create something which reflects that diverse reality and

And people can kind of embrace that that’s a really difficult thing to achieve yeah well it it it is and it isn’t because I mean if if you’re you know if if you’re a good traveler and not just the tourist that’s going to look at the you know who wants to have a

Photo front of the Eiffel Tower and you spend some time in a in in in a place and you live there for a while you start to really understand sort of the Rhythm of Life um how people you know how what time does a street wake up you know what

Shops open where people you know what what are people having for for breakfast and what do they think about things and so if if you’re open-minded to in in a culture and you really have your eyes open and you also are with people who want to share that with you and that’s

What happened to me um people wanted to open their lives to to the film because they thought the film was a very important project um that would help portray the country in a way that they wanted people to know about the country and so they were you it’s it’s intimate

In that way and so it was actually I think if you’re empathic and you’re aware of surroundings uh and you have some artistic ability um you can you can you you C you can portray that to others and it it’s incredibly beautifully shot and when people you

Know access the link they’ll see that there are two aspects which I want to sort of go to next one is this incredible intimacy and I want to look about one scene in particular there’s a woman whose husband has uh died yeah um I’m not sure if she was hit by

Something or whether it was the shock of of what was going on around but she was clearly incredibly um I’d almost describe as hysterical you know the things she was saying incredibly intimate incredibly um affecting um it must be difficult I mean you can’t plan those kind of scenes you

Must have to be in the right place at the right time is it difficult though to just carry on filming uh through someone’s pain to to capture that extraordinary moment I I’ll tell you um I cried every day I I worked and also in editing I cry at the same scene again

And again it’s like it just start coming um but when you’re working I mean I think first of all I can’t speak for everybody I can speak for myself um I it especially in some sort of horrific situation or some really dangerous scary situation just so

Focused on the job that uh that it’s hard it’s it’s it’s it’s a moment of Detachment in order to be able to capture it in order to be able to to compose it there’s so much to think about um that at that very moment it’s

Like oh my God you know I hope I get it you know sort of thing and then a lot of times afterward and then afterward look at it sometimes that night it’s like oh my God this is this is just shocking you know sort of thing it’s like the doctors the like the

Physicians who work there or or even there’s a that you you’re there doing your job and it does take a lot out of you um in order to do your job you have to become slightly emotionally detached at that moment at least for me but it

Doesn’t mean but there’s just no time to to react emotionally it happens after I mean a good example is um even like there’s there’s some there’s like tanks and we don’t have a lot of combat in this film it’s about the people but along the front there’s just constant sound of

Artillery and um and then and but you’re you’re talking to people interviewing people filming whatever there is to film and you stop hearing the the booming you just stop hearing it but on playback it’s like oh God it’s like there’s like all this artillery it didn’t stop but I

Didn’t hear it after you know it when you hear it day after day it you really I mean it’s you filter it out so there is a filtering mechanism I think to be human that you have to have in these kinds of situations otherwise you you

Wouldn’t be able to to exist moment to moment i’ I’ve watched a lot of interviews with with soldiers well and I think if they’ve got a job to do they they probably react in the same way they you know unless there’s immediate danger they’ll filter out those

Uh sort of background uh sort of noises you must have ended up with many many more times footage than has ended up in the film itself you must have shot a huge amount of material how did you then decide which bits to include and which not that must have been quite a

Difficult timec consuming and painful process yeah we we shot probably four or five times the amount of situations than we have in the film I’m not even I’m not even talking about feet like or you know uh number of minutes I mean situations because we filmed in schools

We filmed there’s a lot of foot we we filmed at the front with the 24th Brigade we filmed most of their units uh artillery uh drones uh tanks and so forth uh psychological unit none of that’s in the film um and uh the I you have to decide

What the film’s going to be about what the f focus is going to be be about how you’re going to tell it and I wanted this film we call it part one there it the some of that footage that you that I just mentioned is in a subsequent film

That we’re calling part two um that’s in post- production now and the um and so I wanted this film to be about the the people and the Peril and so I thought we were going to have more combat in it and I realized at two and a half hours we

Didn’t need any combat uh we have very little combat in it um we have we have all kinds of medical scenes that you can’t even imagine how gory they are um and but we have just what you need in order to really understand what’s going on with the

People of the country both at the front and also throughout the country in cities Villages uh towns and the front and the relationship between those things and that’s what I wanted to show I wanted to show the cohesion of the country to and the culture of the country to people

Outside and when doing the filming what of your experiences for that extended period in Ukraine uh really challenged your preconceptions your expectations before you went out what really made you think oh my goodness this is this is really something um every day is I think every

Day in a war zone it’s really something I mean it it and it it it it’s really hard to uh it’s it it’s really hard to comprehend it was impossible for me to comprehend before I went because um and if you think about it most War as a western as someone from

The United States Wars are always over there and here’s uh here are these people who are living in the place that they’re fighting for and I I realized it’s in some ways it was like the American Revolution ution um because they’re fighting for independence from an

Aggressor and uh so and it takes all kinds of forms for all for every person and so the one of the things that really surprised me from the start was that I the original title of the film was to the rescue um because my what I was

Thinking was that because no one came or very few people came to the rescue of the Jews during the Holocaust I was interested in making a film about the people who were coming to the rescue of the people in Ukraine and from the very very start

Someone said to me you know it’s not only people coming from the outside who are coming to the rescue people Ukraine people on the inside are helping people in the inside and that was probably the big moment for me that I realized this is a story about all of the the

Basically it’s sort of like a a beehive where everyone is working together and Yaro in the in the beginning of the film says everyone is a a piece of everyone is a piece of the puzzle it’s a big puzzle and everybody has a part in it

That’s what I didn’t know going in is the is the collaboration of the entire Society of the entire culture and that’s what I had to get um is how that all works together and uh both on an individ individual basis and also as a as a as a society

And then everything went from there I think this is one of the um advantages unfortunately the Russian propaganda have certainly uh I would say on the extreme left and sometimes on the right as well they can paint this as a war for resources as a war for

Territory um they can say that you know Russians ukrainians are just the same people really this is all the military industrial complex stirring things up there are various narratives that will dehumanize and take agency away from Ukraine you’ve described a number of things there of why it’s mobilized everyone from language to culture

Identity Family Values they’re also defending a political Vision as well aren’t they because all of this really kicked off after maidan and the revolutions that proceded it ukrainians are also fighting for a political future and that is one which is is based on a concept of Liberty as opposed to sort of

Tyranny and subjugation how did you what impression do you get of that and how can this be communicated to people let’s say in the US who perhaps don’t quite understand uh the revolutionary political nature of the struggle as well well that it’s it’s like like I mentioned the woman who said

I don’t have children but I want my children to live in a free country and that is that that is the feeling throughout to the to the person because that’s why they’re there and that’s why they’re fighting and that’s why they’re dying and they’re dying not for a piece

Of land in Crimea because that would be if if that were it then it would be ah you know take Crimea we’ll have you know we don’t have to bleed so much but they they they really don’t want to live under subjugation and the and Poland is

Something that they look to and the Polish people understand this because they’ve created a very wonderful modern society for themselves and uh there’s a strong identification that people in Ukraine have for the success of Poland that um that comes across and they see they look to the East and they see you

Know Russia being uh what it is I whatever however you want to describe it and they look to the West their neighbor to the west and they see Poland which has probably the best roads you know better roads in the United States and you know a free country and you know a

Free society and and thriving and they see themselves right there physically in the middle and they they know which direction they’re going in um and it’s to the it’s to the person I can say it’s really to the person um one of the things that uh you I I just in making

The film wanted to in order for people in the in order for people outside Ukraine to identify with it is to is that the entire cycle of life isn’t it uh there’s you know there’s B there’s a birth there’s birth there’s a wedding there’s death there’s grieving and I and

I wanted to show it so that I wanted to show those things in a way that could be that anybody anywhere any human being could say that’s just like me and the reason why many people find the film emotional is because it reminds you know it reminds them of their own life like

We there’s a cesarian section in the film and many many women have said to me wow I had a cesarian and I didn’t know it was really like that you know and that and that was really interesting it’s the women who really pick up on the

Cesarian many of the guys say they can’t look at it um because we really go into it’s very long scene because I wanted to make a point of many things in that in in that sequence same with the wedding or same with the you know there couple

Of uh there there couple of uh situations where where their funerals are grieving and these are Universal this is universal this is part of the human experience and to show to uh have the film and it’s really cinematic this is not like a normal documentary but by any stretch of

Imagination I don’t think I’m willing to say it’s more like real Cinema where you have an emotional experience with the with whatever it is that’s that’s going on in front of you or around you because of the sounds and it very easy you called it immersive to feel like you’re

There and so and so that that is all part of the the the the goal of the film is uh both to be there and to understand what it’s like for them to be there and of course you don’t you know I’ve done quite a lot of filming on on sort of

Smartphones and and normal sort of uh you know cameras and so on you must have had first of all the sort of planning that went into it and the the equipment you had to sort of take you must have had some some fairly you know substantial equipment to get that really

Sort of widescreen immersive really deep depth of field the colors are incredibly intense this immersive feel is yes it’s the subject matter but it’s also the way you’ve captured it so technically you know how much did you have to put into that and how much equipment did you have

To Lug around to uh to get that impression that that was uh that was another area where I uh where I was learning what it was what it would be like to film in Ukraine during a war at first I the first rig that we went out

With was really very simple um it was one camera one sound guy uh so one camera guy one sound guy and me because it was more like I had the I didn’t know what we would be faced with and so I was thinking more lot along the lines of

What would be a normal news Gathering uh Rigg I never I always wanted to shoot cinematically but technically I thought all we can do is have three guys traveling around you know with one camera one sound and um having and then so we filmed a bunch and I realized that

To have that whole cinematic experience it was insufficient to be have only one camera for edit for for reasons of editing and also for reasons of what we want to film and so uh we expanded to two cameras uh so we were always at one point so we were all shoo with two

Cameras one sound rig and um and then so of kept that small but then I realized you know what we need more help with lights so we added lights and and then we added you know and and the the the amount of equipment started to grow and

The number of people started to grow um because in order to so this was really more like shooting a an independent feature film from a technical standpoint than a normal documentary um because at some point like in that CH sequence we had five cameras we had like five

Cameras in that to film uh the church service um I don’t know there were probably about five sound rigs that we had rigged up we had one for the choir there was choir upstairs we had two on the altar we had one in the middle of the floor in order to create that

Experience this is not how you normally make a documentary and so and then so we ended up being having a van filling up the van with gear and with lenses and so forth and then we had basically everything we needed wherever we went so we would go

Places not knowing what we would need necessarily but we knew that we had enough including a generator because in Ukraine Norm in Ukraine you could lose power at any time because of the war and so we always needed to be able to have the option of lighting if that’s what we

Wanted um and so we were really so this took a while so if you watch the film at there’s some there’s there there you can tell you can tell some places where we had less equipment where we had less coverage and uh and then there are other

Places we we learned really fast uh as far as how to how to do it better um but that you know that’s a burden in itself to take everything but it was much better to have the gear because we I had an artistic vision and in order to be

Able to have that s to really have Cinema um you need a certain amount of you need a certain amount of gear uh considering we could not uh we because we went everywhere so in Interiors exteriors all kinds of situations um that so that was a lot of

Fun that was a lot of fun learning learning at it that we could we could get away with it and maybe the one of the most impactful scenes because of I guess the semity the richness of the colors and the experience and the fact you’ve got these multiple sort of angles

And facets that you’re cutting between is the church scene and was it a conscious effort a conscious intent here to really have you’re not just showing sort of everyday life you’re showing quite a lot of spiritual life as well a lot of depth to people’s lives um first

Of all yeah was that an intentional thing or is that something that you realized would leave a gap in the film because you’d be leaving out a very real part of reality I mean there are not many films these days that actually show that uh spiritual life uh on camera yeah

Well you know most of what you see in news reports are B is basically superficial it’s it’s an event but I was I’m always interested in what motivates people what what the reason for why uh the reason for why someone fights everybody has a different reason why they fight everybody has a different

Reason why they pray um and so what’s always interesting to me the spirituality part is what it has to do with motivation and uh who what what makes a person who he or she is and in the case of the church in uh in Ukraine it’s the it’s the uh church but in

Particular the belief in Christ um is very very strong in the identity of many people in Ukraine and that’s and that comes across in the film because because it’s we’re only recording what’s there you know it’s it’s like uh we’re it’s in this in this sense it’s really Cinema ver you know

Cinema truth and so the church is especially during the time of War not for everybody I mean everybody’s different but I’ll tell you I was talking the one one of the priests who’s in the film who’s speaking we were talking outside one day um of the you

Know like uh on the apron of of that church and a woman came up and said can I she was distraught and she said can I talk to you uh to the priest and what ha and it her uh her son had just been captured by the Russians and so you know

He he took one step away from our conversation and she said can you pray for him and I feel like crying now because it was it was to her that prayer was uh what she could do to speak to God her God for help and it was probably at that moment that

I saw the intense spirituality that many people rely on in order to get through the war and I think it’s incredibly important there’s two aspects that that that I want to sort of dig into there one is that the Russian propaganda narrative is very much that Ukraine is Banning religion Banning the Orthodox

Church Etc um and is a uh you know essentially they call it a heathen State um if you speak Russian like I do and you can actually hear the propagandists in the original um I imagine it would be very much like being able to understand German and hear the

Toxic vitriolic speeches of those propagandists with their genocidal rhetoric it’s exactly there um they portray Ukraine as a kind of country led by Satan and Satanist ideas i’ I’ve heard that expressed a number of different times what you’re seeing on the ground here is a very very different reality however the Russian version

Unfortunately is getting through to some people some decision makers and it’s especially cutting through with certain people a minority within the GOP and with a certain element of uh the Evangelical Community they are actually believing this narrative that Ukraine somehow is is suppressing religion and politics so how important is your film

To inject itself into that debate with the sort of incredibly strong reality that you’ve been able to capture yeah you know one one group I mentioned that uh the first group who is responding to to the film are people who are what I call Ukraine Fanatics uh but people

People have more than one interest in life and many of the people who are interested in Ukraine or Ukraine Fanatics are also interested in the church their own church in the west and so some of those people have come some people have come to me and said I I want

My church and I’ve also been asked to speak to Jewish groups like The Synagogue groups um because they they see that in in this film because uh and and so I think when you see the film and you see the church and you see also not just an

Organized religion uh in in in you know in the venue of of a prayer of a place of prayer but also the two women who are um who are uh making the cam Nets and they make reference to to God um and it’s just they’re in their normal conversation about everything else

They’re talking about but you know it’s because it’s really a belief it’s not just when they’re in church that they have this belief and then you know and then it’s very clear in the um the Christmas in bahmut sequence where that that it’s you know that that it’s uh

It’s more than Christmas to them it’s it’s uh celebration of Christ you know they they have this greeting Christ is born um and the way they cross themselves without you know and it’s it’s it’s second nature in their in in in the in the life of these people and

That when you see it you realize you know what they this is the way it is and that’s an interesting aspect of the film you mentioned Christmas embarkment but actually watching the film end to end I’ve watched it sort of I would say with full attention one time but I’ve also

Had it kind of playing in the background while I’m doing work because he got an extraordinary soundtrack you’ve got an incredible choice of music that accompanies the scenes and really the way you flip the mood from one scene to another is incredibly effectively done through not just image but also music

But also you have this sense of time passing because you have coverage of all of the seasons was that a sort of conscious part of your planning or did it just sort of happen that way that you realize you’ve you’ve actually captured a full you know a full set of seasons in

A year no well the the way uh the way it works is the way it works for me is uh and not the first to say this is that you know a film cinema and I I’ll say Cinema because this is not just a documentary this is an emotional

Experience I mean you’re seeing like you’re you’re you’re experiencing something and that’s within you that you’re connecting with and um and it it’s very much like a musical composition uh which is there are you know there are different there there are different moods and and how this how

Music builds how how Symphony builds let’s say um and what what the a or what a viewer what a listener will the experience that they have over a period of time which they’ve given me which is two and you know over two hours of their life they’ve given me this time that

They want to that they want to experience something so um so the uh the idea so my my responsibility is to make it interesting for them and to make it enjoyable for them in some way I mean and there are parts of this film that some people just find horrific and that

So gory and awful that they can’t watch it and that’s fine because that’s part of what you know the experience of War but and so as far as the seasons go yeah I realized that one way of and we we make you you realize that on your own

Because we don’t say you know here are the seasons but wanted to show really the country during a period of time because War happens during you know during time and in most films that have to do with war um or in some films that have to do with war it there isn’t that

Sense of the calendar necessarily unless like Calendar’s flipping so the way I did it was actually with the natural world um which was like you can in like there’s apples on the tree um behind the guys who are painting cars and then there’s that scene in of the village

That goes from summer into to Winter and then winter so yeah it was very conscious decision it made making cutting the film much harder because there were things that we that might have been appropriate uh or and from the storytelling standpoint earlier in the film but they were shot with

Snow so I so it it it it made making the film much more difficult in order for the audience to have the experience of time passing because that’s what I wanted them to realize that time was passing yeah and that that that is a very effective uh part of it um and of

Course to extent in Wartime uh normal life and The rhythms of normal life are suspended or upturned um and I think what you’ve captured in a very interesting way and I love to hear your your impressions of that is there are a lot of volunteers there are foreign

Volunteers but also you’re at pains to show many Ukrainian volunteers people who have you know totally changed their working life totally change what they do from morning till evening um and a big chunk of their time now is in contributing to the war effort in whatever way they can you know whether

It’s baking pies that wonderful scene of the the woman sort of baking the pie to send the front her husband and his unit um or those making cam netting what impression did that make on you and how did you feel really that you wanted to capture that sense of a whole society

Coming together to assist yeah well when I started I didn’t know that all this was going on I learned about all of this being there and being there for such a long period of time and uh it’s as I said at first I thought it was only people from the

Outside coming into to help but then I realized right away because somebody told me and then I found out firstand that the whole society the whole culture everybody is doing their thing to to be support the war in one way or another so the home front is very very active with

The uh front line and uh and how that happened was that uh is basically one thing led to another because we developed the trust of people which you need in in the war situation and so one person like what what happened was that we Dev we sent uh we filmed the medicine

Being uh delivered to the hospital in uh in Lviv and somebody at the hospital said oh because they see that you’re you’re credible you’re real and and one of the doctors there said oh you know what I we we use the medicine we don’t use here we sort and we send that stuff

To the front so do you want to film that so I said sure we’ll film that and then it happened to be in a church that and and the they’re making the ladies next door in the church basement are making sandwiches why are they doing they’re making sandwiches for the for the

Territorial guard which is in the film and so one thing one thing led to the next because there’s this interconnectivity of society there now and because once you’re trusted you once you’re trusted within a group because you have to be in a group in a sense um

Then the doors become wider and wider and oh yeah I know a guy’s doing cars this happened all the time it would be oh this guy’s doing cars and this guy’s doing this guy is M you know we make malov cocktails you know so we had to

Film the malov cocktail part and uh and you know and so or this is you know program out of school and just it became basically uh an understanding one person to the next would tell the next and we were there to uh to record it and so as

A one wonderful opportunity to have the trust of people um to uh that they would open their doors to us but this I mean to to to sort of come to sort of the sort of concluding questions I think this is a really important area perhaps to focus on

Finally if this was simply a squabble about a piece of land between two governments two armies I wonder whether you know we’d have what you describe as the sort of uh the fanatical Pro ukrainians or the pro Ukrainian bubblers I call it um if it was a case of just that sort of

Elites you know slugging it out I’m not sure that would grab our attention and your film certainly wouldn’t grab our attention it’s the fact that it is society motivating to survive and protect things that it finds valuable but also is one of the reasons we’re also engaged with this is this idea that

Ukrainian Civil Society has shown us something which perhaps we have lost sight of in our own democracies is that that we can’t rely on governments alone to solve our problems and what ukrainians here are doing are seeing gaps seeing areas where local national government are really not doing anything

Or or not effective and they just say okay well I I I can solve this myself you know no one’s doing it I’m going to go ahead and do it is that something you felt was very precious and perhaps something that you know this is this is

One of the reasons perhaps why we’re so engaged with Ukraine as a subject yeah I think that I think that um the I think that what’s going on there is really the what in a way it’s very idealistic that in it’s it’s an idealistic concept that

Many people in the west have which is people pulling together that there’s a so there that people from all different walks of life are united in purpose which I think we I think we’re missing that in uh in in what in Western culture uh to some degree because we’re not

Faced with an existential threat so it’s like we can argue about things that are really much much more they’re more minor in the grand scheme of life right you know from an existential standpoint but because it’s because it’s there and because they’re willing to do it they’re

Willing to bleed for it that they’ve that uh it’s something that in a way the people who understand on outside what’s going on there it’s almost a romantic vision of it um that we can understand basically that these people are willing to do what we are not

Willing to do um in the UK or the us or in France or in Germany which is stand up and fight for something that for for the common you know basically for your own family and also for your your village because you hear that in the you

Hear that in the film and then for your country and we have all three of those uh said in the film explicitly I’m fighting for my family I’m fighting for my Village and I’m fighting for my country and of course every Ukrainian is fighting to to to win uh and they have a

Fairly common conception of of what victory means it’s getting their territories under their controls they can Liberate the people who they see as hostages of the Russians and if you hear what Russians do people in in the occupied territories or who are captured then then very much it’s uh you know a

Hostage type situation um that mindset that Singularity of vision and View and will is this one of the problems because we don’t have that we don’t share that or at least many of our decision makers don’t seem to understand that um do you feel that we could be doing more or our

Mindset needs to change in order to back Ukraine to win as a as opposed to what we seem to be doing at the moment which is backing them to survive yeah well I think it’s twofold I think uh on the one hand and I think they’re all different points of view but

Let’s say you’re you’re really asking about the point of view that is not supporting them for victory in the way that they really feel that they are that they’re going they’re going in that direction it’s the question of H who is going to help them get there

And the qu and so the answer to that is I think the people who are deficient in their thinking necessarily although maybe they’re interested but they’re not they don’t quite get the whole thing the most important thing to realize is is that this is a genocidal war and that

Losing for them means losing everything incl it means death rape loss of a generation children being kidnapped and I think that that’s missing in the in the understanding of the people of people who don’t quite understand what this war is it’s not about a piece of land Crimea alone it’s about the

Survival of a group of people and a way of life and a Heritage and it’s really uh it and history will look back at this and determine whether the we now help them survive or whether they’re going to be uh or they’re going to be uh victims of yet another you know genocidal

War and of course subsequent events uh will maybe put that even starer contrast if other countries are subsequently invaded if Russia is given impunity in the current War um it’s got a horrible echo of the 1930s hasn’t it and missed opportunities well I’ll tell you one of

The things that’s very interesting um as far as this film goes um and a capita basis um we I mean we’re getting strong viewership uh in United States UK um and also within Ukraine I mean it’s really surprising not totally surprising but how many people in Ukraine are watching

It but over represented are Finland Poland Sweden uh on a per capita basis and in in in terms of what what I know of the people who are viewing it the responses I’m getting and so forth so it’s those countries uh that you’re talking about that are showing a greater

Interest in the film we have great interest all around but on a per capita basis yeah they’re interested and they’re responding and they uh yeah many of them have been at the uh you know the um uh the the painful end of of Russian imperialist aggression in the past so

This has a certain amount of existential threat to them as well I would I would say um the last question there you you’ve said that there’s another volume on the way uh another film with uh incredibly strong material that you’re putting together um do you have a

Timeline for when we’ll be able to see that um well we’re working on it I don’t I want to come out with it this year because I want it to be and sooner rather than later because it’s it’s a different film altogether from this film

Um even though we shot a lot of it at the same time uh this film is about people and the Peril uh the next one is about combat and the I I don’t want to go too much into it but it’s a different way of looking at combat and how the

Ukrainians are doing it um than I think most people uh most people have experienced and then and not combat alone but the reason why they’re fighting which is again the Peril well we definitely look for for to that I strongly recommend everyone who’s watching this to check the film out we

Will put Links of course into the description of the video uh it’s a very haunting experience if you’ve seen 20 days in marel or about to see that I strongly recommend you watch both films because it gives you an incredible multifaceted uh view of the war there is

Of course John sween’s film as well um we’ll pop links into that there say three incredible films that you should watch um and share to people who are not in the Ukrainian bubble because we’re really you know Keen to increase the understanding outside of those who are

Daily engaged with Ukraine we want to re-engage those who’ve Switched Off we want to engage people to contact their representatives their politicians share the links to these movies and uh get the understanding of what Ukraine is fighting for um really out there to change the mindset of our leadership and

Make people understand that this really is not just an exential fight for Ukraine it’s one for us and our values as well Ben thank you so much for the incredible work you’re doing and for sharing that experience with us uh on the interview today well thanks Jonathan

And thanks for all the podcasts you do because I’ve learned quite a bit from them as well