Language
Ukrainian, English, Russian
Subtitles
English, Russian
About
“These guys shoot from here, those guys shoot from there—they never get enough.” When one of the film’s subjects says this, the borders blur; it is unclear whether she is referring to the invaders or the defenders. Filmed on 16mm over a decade, Mariinka follows young people from a city on Ukraine’s eastern front—now a crumbling ghost town. This geopolitical sundering extends beyond mere lines on a map. At the film’s heart is the story of four brothers scattered by fate: Maksim, the eldest, has been left paralyzed by an injury; Mark fights in the Ukrainian army, while his brother Ruslan has taken up arms for the Russian side. The youngest, Daniil, adopted as a toddler by a family in Mississippi, became Samuel, a teenage American gun enthusiast. Through video calls and letters, a chronicle of violence and cruelty unfolds amid a desperate hope for a reunion that seems increasingly unlikely. A sweeping and mesmerizing visual achievement, the film blends poetic realism with raw documentary footage, poignantly juxtaposing the untamed nature of the Carpathian Mountains with the billowing smoke of the Donbas.
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