Mila Teshaieva & Marcus Lenz: When Spring Came to

The Russian massacre in Bucha in Ukraine is well known and talked about. This film documents the cleaning up after the Russians left. It’s not nice to look at. Corpses in black plastic bags being collected and transported, names spoken out of murdered citizens, registration of the deceased, insight to apartments, where the Russians took siege, mourning, of course there is a sad atmosphere but there is also a will to carry on with life. Documentation of war crimes in Bucha has been collected. It’s terrible. The film, shown as part of the Luminous section at IDFA, documents, there are talks with survivors, it is important that the filmmakers were there and were there so quick after the massacre in March this year.

Allow me to change language and quote the Ukrainian author Serhiy Jadan, who spoke at a book fair in Frankfurt. How do you speak/film about Butcha when the war is over:

La poésie après Boutcha et Izioum est certainement possible, voire nécessaire. Cependant, l’ombre de Boutcha et d’Izioum, leur présence, va peser de tout son poids sur la poésie d’après-guerre et va largement déterminer son contenu et son ton. C’est une prise de conscience douloureuse mais nécessaire du fait qu’à partir de maintenant, le contexte des poèmes écrits dans notre pays sera celui des charniers et des quartiers bombardés… 

Germany, 2022, 66 mins.

Photos: Mila Teshaieva (radioeins) Marcus Lenz (wild films) Serhiy Jadan 

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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