One Day in Ukraine

In the last few weeks, intense warfare has surreally mixed places and people and created a post-apocalyptic dimension revealing new qualities and roles. A young woman is laying out food scraps for abandoned animals in the local park when the air raid siren starts up again. Down in the metro station, kids while away the hours watching cartoons, as a pet cat looks on. Snow falls gently on a group of men operating a reconnaissance drone on the outskirts of the city.

It’s March 14, 2022, the 2,944th day of the Russian-Ukrainian War. A collective of Ukrainian filmmakers document life in Kyiv, for ordinary civilians, citizens turned activists and groups of territorial defense soldiers. This is a quietly incisive portrait of a city – no international correspondents, not frontline action, no bodies, but a patchwork of life in a city of people adapting, enduring, bracing themselves. Filmed only a few months ago, this superb, distinctive work comes directly from Ukraine, by Volodymyr Tykhyy and the Babylon’13 collective, making it an urgent and thought-provoking insight into Kyiv today.