On the screen – Ukraine. Donbas. Ukrainian boys-volunteers live in the trenches they have dug, from time to time making combat raids, and in their free time they tell the camera about their life before the war and their dreams after.
Documentary film by French director Lou Bureau about the war on in the east of Ukraine “Trenches” (Trenches, 2021) won the main prize at the prestigious film festival Dok.fest, which takes place in Munich.
The film festival, which ends on May 15, featured 124 films from 55 countries, including Germany, Spain, South Africa, Canada and the United States. The French documentary filmmaker's film turned out to be the best.
-what country. Ukraine is on the screen. Donbas. Ukrainian boys-volunteers live in the trenches they dug, from time to time making combat raids, and in their free time they tell the camera about their life before the war and about their dreams after.
Most of them are children. They cut into computer games, gossip and dream of a glass of beer in their own garden after the war. For them, war is not a game or a mother, but simply “it turned out that way”. An elderly fat commander – a solid soldier who can not say half a phrase without a mother – a convinced patriot. He is here for his homeland, for his land, against foreign aggression. He does not dream of a garden or a wonderful post-war life – he has a family, children and a firm belief that the enemy must be defeated, otherwise the children will not forgive. For him, soldiers are the same children, he shouts at them like a mortal mother when they neglect security measures.
Read also: Oleg Sentsov's film “Rhinoceros” won two awards at the Stockholm Festival
” Trenches “- a film made of genuine humanism. Anti-war rhetoric is not declarative here, but it is evident in every frame, in every word of the heroes. And in the careful attention with which the camera watches the boys, how it catches their facial expressions – often helpless, so childishly surprised.
