You may have seen quite a few documentaries about Ukraine and the impact of Russia’s war against the country in recent years. But Yuliia Hontaruk‘s To Die to Live, which just world premiered in the Special Screenings program of the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), takes a longer-term view and journey.
The film from the director of Ten Seconds follows three Ukrainian volunteers across 12 years of war: “from the frontlines of 2014, through the painful return to a life that no longer quite fits, and back into the fire once more in 2022.”
The KVIFF website describes it as “a quietly devastating film about the impossible task of making peace with death and the unrelenting desire to live.”
To Die to Live explores the stories and traumas of Shakhta, Dancer and Potter who volunteered for the army to fight in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict in Eastern Ukraine in 2014. Although the horrible things they experienced during two years on the front accompany them for every second of their existence, they try to return to civilian life. But the Russian invasion in 2022 forces them to again confront the war. Written and directed by Hontaruk, the doc from Babylon 13 Production features cinematography by Denys Strashnyi, Yurii Gruzinov and Hontaruk. The editors are Roman Liubyi,Uģis Olte, Mykola Bazarkin, Hontaruk, Iryna Stetsenko, Pavlo Zelenov and Petro Tsymbal. The producers are Hontaruk, Ivanna Khitsinska, Alexandra Bratyshchenko, Uldis Cekulis, Katarina Krnacova and Ihor Savychenko.
