Yuliia Hontaruk: TO DIE TO LIVE

I remember the film project from the Baltic Sea Docs 2019, entitled “Company of Steel”. Especially the scene with the young man, who rides down a street, full speed on a skateboard. And falls. He and the two other protagonists had joined the army as volunteers in 2014 following the Maidan and the annexation of Krim. What they have experienced had been caught by Hontaruk and I was curious to know when we could see a finished film, another documentary about the horrors in Ukraine interpreted through three young men.

I had to wait until now, when an almost two hour long documentary met its audience with a premiere at the festival in Karlovy Vary. Hontaruk waited until she could follow the soldiers at home AND until the full scale war with Russia started in 2022 AND the three of them went back to the frontline. 12 years older, a scoop of course to see Potter (the one already mentioned, the one with the skateboard), Dancer and Shaktha grow up, change, making plans for the future, be with the family and split to live in a garage (Shaktha) and come back again to wife and kids. They have dreams for the future, Potter wants to make tattoo instruments that can travel the world.

It’s a portrait of my generation, Hontaruk has said, we will always have the war inside us, who have been close to Death, actually expecting Death, living Death in order to Live a life. War, yes also filmed with GoPro cameras, camera comme stylo, muddy trenches, battles, wounds, fear. In a dramatic editing structure that often irritated me but I understood that cutting to and fro the war gave space to peaceful moments of reflections, where the three, especially Shaktha talks in reflective moments to Hontaruk behind the camera. She gets total confidence.

An understatement: An important documentation and a creative documentary. Thank you!

Ukraine, Latvia, Slovakia, 116 mins., 2026

Photo: Shaktha on the road again.

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

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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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