00:00:32.833 --> 00:00:38.041
I first met my girlfriend, Liuba,
in the Spring of 2022.

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Like a lot of other Ukrainians around that time, she'd
fled her country following Russia's full-scale invasion

00:00:46.166 --> 00:00:51.625
and she'd come to Berlin,
where I was living at the time.

00:00:53.958 --> 00:01:01.208
I remember one day, many months later, we were on the train together
and she received a strange notification on her phone

00:01:01.208 --> 00:01:03.541
from Instagram.

00:01:06.291 --> 00:01:12.250
Later on, I asked if I could interview
her about this notification.

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The following film represents the wider investigation
Liuba and I embarked upon, sparked by this interview.

00:01:31.250 --> 00:01:33.291
So,

00:01:33.291 --> 00:01:36.291
So basically Instagram had this,

00:01:36.291 --> 00:01:36.875
So basically Instagram had this,
- No, talk to me.

00:01:36.875 --> 00:01:38.333
So basically Instagram had this,
- No, talk to me.
So basically Instagram had this,

00:01:38.333 --> 00:01:42.166
Wait wait wait. Just wait a couple
seconds and then start again.

00:01:44.375 --> 00:01:49.583
Yeah, so basically the Instagram have this
new feature that they promote like hardly

00:01:49.583 --> 00:01:52.583
and they collect your highlights

00:01:52.583 --> 00:01:59.041
or your stories and put the music
on and make like this

00:01:59.041 --> 00:02:00.541
kinda ‘video’ for you.

00:02:00.541 --> 00:02:02.208
With these materials.

00:02:02.208 --> 00:02:05.166
And I remember I was just like scrolling
the stories of my friends

00:02:05.166 --> 00:02:08.666
and suddenly it was this
advertisement from Instagram

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when they,

00:02:11.416 --> 00:02:14.208
when they,

00:02:16.458 --> 00:02:20.208
put on all of the highlights about war.

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Put this like music on top.

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Which was like really optimistic

00:02:27.041 --> 00:02:29.166
and completely

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because it was like pictures of

00:02:32.375 --> 00:02:35.750
people without legs or like about

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destroyed buildings and like

00:02:39.458 --> 00:02:42.750
Stuff like this,
and the Instagram put like this

00:02:42.750 --> 00:02:44.708
optimistic music on top

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and it was like so surrealistic.

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How did it make you feel?

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Absurd?

00:03:01.083 --> 00:03:02.250
Absurd.

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It made me feel absurd.

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Like I'm living some

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Like sometimes I feel this kind of

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Derealisation.

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Where I feel myself as a like,
film character or something,

00:03:18.416 --> 00:03:23.041
because so many stuff that
happens in my life is just like so

00:03:23.625 --> 00:03:26.875
weird and like,

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So I just make fun out of it.

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It’s my

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one of my

00:03:36.166 --> 00:03:37.791
defensive mechanisms.

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Mechanisms.

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Mechanisms.
Mechanisms.

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Yeah this one of my defense
mechanisms, I just like

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I'm just like,

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Because if you like, being so

00:03:47.583 --> 00:03:52.083
you physically can’t be like, tense
all the time or like, angry.

00:03:52.083 --> 00:03:55.291
It ruins you from inside.

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so your

00:03:58.333 --> 00:04:05.125
mind’s kind of adapting to the situation

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and balancing it out.

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Liuba had many Ukrainian friends
who'd also escaped to Berlin,

00:05:19.125 --> 00:05:22.625
so we decided to talk to them also.

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Nobody gave attention to

00:05:26.583 --> 00:05:32.375
the moment that we had
150,000 Russians next to the border.

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We already have seen
that for eight years.

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Eight years.

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Ukrainian soldiers

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were fighting with them.

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So we were joking like ‘la la la la la’

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150,000 Russians ah la la.

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Some of my friends were saying okay,
you want to go to fly a helicopter?

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for example, like a soldier, or you're
going to be a drone operator? or whatever.

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But it was jokes

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because everybody was scared.

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Okay, but maybe they're going to start...

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Basically, the source of the information
for the average

00:06:15.875 --> 00:06:20.416
Ukrainian for example nowadays
and those days was Telegram.

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Three weeks before the start,
everybody was checking Telegrams

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just to read what is happening now.
‘There is something new that Putin has said’

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Of course, you’re reading about it or you're
watching the video whilst thinking, okay,

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maybe next day they're going to start,
maybe next night they going to start.

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We don't know.

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While you're overwhelmed by
the information, you have a lack of sleep.

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four, five hours.

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you feel like a fucking zombie

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I don't know. You just talking to people,

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Of course you do your things,
but you feel like you're becoming

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a slower person.
In a way of thinking, doing,

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telling some things
or creating ideas, because of the stress

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But it’s like, you have to check

00:07:08.166 --> 00:07:10.625
news because maybe something

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is going to happen this night
and you have to be prepared.

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On February 24th, my Grandma
wake me up at 5am,

00:07:40.500 --> 00:07:43.541
she had like these crazy eyes

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and like,
she was, I never saw her like this,

00:07:46.791 --> 00:07:49.250
and she said me,

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“Don't panic, Liuba, just don't panic”

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“But like the war starts”

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“Putin attacked, they bombed our airports”

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“They bombed everything”

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“so it’s no connection here”

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and I remember I wake up immediately.

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And I pretend that I’m calm,
but I wasn’t.

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It just was

00:08:13.208 --> 00:08:17.250
like I wake up in a different dimension
and completely different reality,

00:08:17.583 --> 00:08:20.458
like in, one night,

00:08:20.458 --> 00:08:23.458
whole my life is changed, like

00:08:24.041 --> 00:08:26.500
my apartment wasn't safe anymore.

00:08:26.500 --> 00:08:29.833
My city wasn't safe anymore.
My country

00:08:31.541 --> 00:08:32.791
wasn't safe anymore.

00:08:32.791 --> 00:08:37.125
And everything was just weird and chaotic.

00:08:46.791 --> 00:08:49.750
A lot of villages
on the East side from Kyiv

00:08:49.750 --> 00:08:53.500
was under occupation
in the very first few weeks.

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And like in the first week, actually,
in the in a few days after I left Kyiv,

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it was kind of surrounded.

00:09:04.208 --> 00:09:05.208
I was in Makovyshche

00:09:05.208 --> 00:09:08.375
And Makovyshche is like

00:09:08.375 --> 00:09:09.333
Here

00:09:09.333 --> 00:09:10.083
While I was staying

00:09:10.083 --> 00:09:13.583
in this in this village,
basically, first day was okay.

00:09:14.083 --> 00:09:16.333
Second day was okay.

00:09:16.333 --> 00:09:19.916
And if I remember correctly,
it was fourth day

00:09:20.375 --> 00:09:23.750
when water stopped, no electricity.

00:09:24.041 --> 00:09:27.708
And one day I see that there is a vehicle

00:09:27.708 --> 00:09:31.416
next to a building of our neighbors

00:09:31.625 --> 00:09:34.708
like, okay, we have Telegram channels

00:09:34.708 --> 00:09:37.708
with Ukrainian army

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If you see some Russian vehicle
just send it there.

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Then I’m taking the photo.

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I'm sending that and 20 minutes after,

00:09:47.625 --> 00:09:50.625
like a really small amount of time,
little amount of time,

00:09:51.750 --> 00:09:56.500
there is an aircraft coming in the air
and bombing that shit.

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So the vehicle exploded.

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And I was like,
I don't know, was it because of my action?

00:10:03.041 --> 00:10:06.875
that I send them and Ukrainians
Ukrainian army see this vehicle

00:10:07.083 --> 00:10:10.750
and they bombed it
or is it something else?

00:10:10.750 --> 00:10:12.750
Maybe they already
knew about it? I don't know.

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I did my small action

00:10:16.916 --> 00:10:19.708
to let them know

00:10:19.708 --> 00:10:22.708
that you can bomb this.

00:10:23.625 --> 00:10:26.416
And how are you feeling at that point?

00:10:26.416 --> 00:10:30.541
seeing what had happened
after you'd sent the message?

00:10:31.125 --> 00:10:33.333
I was kind of happy

00:10:33.333 --> 00:10:36.166
that maybe I was

00:10:41.458 --> 00:10:44.458
How to say it?

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I guess you’re helping?

00:10:49.916 --> 00:10:51.208
I felt

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I wasn't happy in that time.

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You know? It feels like a video game.

00:11:00.250 --> 00:11:05.833
In a video game,
you have to have more points to win.

00:11:06.583 --> 00:11:09.583
And I was like, okay, now

00:11:10.083 --> 00:11:13.083
I'm scared to do my action,

00:11:13.250 --> 00:11:16.250
but to have,
to achieve more points.

00:11:16.250 --> 00:11:17.541
I have to do that.

00:11:17.541 --> 00:11:20.541
So I'm taking the picture.
I'm sending that.

00:11:20.708 --> 00:11:23.166
And as soon as Russian vehicle was bombed,

00:11:23.166 --> 00:11:26.166
I was like, okay, we have +1 point.

00:11:27.166 --> 00:11:31.541
But I was really scared at that time
because,

00:11:31.708 --> 00:11:35.166
of course, if you're taking some pictures,
you're helping Ukrainian army.

00:11:35.458 --> 00:11:39.916
But if you're occupied
and Russians are coming into your house,

00:11:40.291 --> 00:11:43.291
you know that you can be
the next dead person

00:11:43.541 --> 00:11:46.583
just because you were helping your army.

00:11:46.583 --> 00:11:48.083
Our thing was just to pray that

00:11:48.083 --> 00:11:51.791
they don't wanna to check your phone
because it was even a thing

00:11:51.791 --> 00:11:56.166
that if they see some pro-Ukrainian
channels, you will have troubles.

00:11:56.500 --> 00:11:59.916
Of course, I was sitting next
to the window checking all of the roads,

00:11:59.916 --> 00:12:05.541
because as soon as you see some people
which are not from this region

00:12:05.541 --> 00:12:10.333
who have uniforms and whatever weapons,
it's better to go to your fucking phone

00:12:10.333 --> 00:12:13.458
and to delete immediately
everything what you have

00:12:13.458 --> 00:12:16.375
because information can

00:12:16.375 --> 00:12:18.083
kill you.

00:12:18.583 --> 00:12:21.041
All, these small cities

00:12:21.041 --> 00:12:22.958
Around the Kyiv was

00:12:22.958 --> 00:12:25.541
not all, but like
a lot of them, like Russians was there

00:12:25.541 --> 00:12:29.125
they were like holding people and people
that was trying to escape,

00:12:29.833 --> 00:12:32.208
a lot of them were killed.

00:12:33.250 --> 00:12:35.041
We heard from the

00:12:35.041 --> 00:12:37.791
Ukrainian soldier,
‘Yeah, I guess is better for you to move tomorrow’

00:12:37.791 --> 00:12:42.416
Because this morning, there was a family
trying to escape this village

00:12:42.416 --> 00:12:45.625
to go somewhere else,
I mean, in the West or whatever.

00:12:46.166 --> 00:12:52.750
And the Russians killed those family
members inside of the vehicle.

00:12:52.750 --> 00:12:55.958
They see that those are civilians

00:12:55.958 --> 00:12:58.958
and they killed the whole family.

00:13:02.708 --> 00:13:03.708
Friend of my Mother, like

00:13:03.708 --> 00:13:07.750
they used to go into the same school,
and a friend of my Mother,

00:13:08.958 --> 00:13:11.041
she was trying to evacuate

00:13:11.041 --> 00:13:14.291
with her husband and 14 year old son,

00:13:17.791 --> 00:13:19.250
And,

00:13:19.250 --> 00:13:22.041
it was like this tank that just like,

00:13:24.208 --> 00:13:27.208
so basically, her son was without a head.

00:13:28.458 --> 00:13:31.458
She was like,

00:13:31.875 --> 00:13:32.916
shot.

00:13:32.916 --> 00:13:34.833
Her body was like,

00:13:34.833 --> 00:13:35.916
kinda

00:13:36.416 --> 00:13:39.416
teared apart, you know.

00:13:40.875 --> 00:13:43.541
And her husband.
They all were like killed

00:13:43.541 --> 00:13:46.208
When they just,
they’re not like military or anything

00:13:46.208 --> 00:13:50.583
they just tried to,
was trying to evacuate the city.

00:13:50.583 --> 00:13:52.416
Escape.

00:13:52.416 --> 00:13:54.083
And it was like in the very first like

00:13:54.083 --> 00:13:56.458
few weeks of war.

00:14:01.583 --> 00:14:05.875
And you're like asking yourself,
am I lucky?

00:14:05.875 --> 00:14:09.041
That I didn't went

00:14:09.666 --> 00:14:12.666
this morning, for example.

00:14:12.833 --> 00:14:15.833
What is that?

00:14:59.541 --> 00:15:01.041
So when,

00:15:01.041 --> 00:15:06.125
the full-scale war broke out a year ago,
all of us were feeling so much anger,

00:15:06.125 --> 00:15:09.166
and we still feel anger,
but at that time, it was,

00:15:09.750 --> 00:15:12.625
enormous amount of anger that

00:15:12.625 --> 00:15:14.791
should have channeled somehow.

00:15:14.791 --> 00:15:16.041
And of course,

00:15:16.041 --> 00:15:18.750
the fact of the beginning
of the full-scale war

00:15:18.750 --> 00:15:22.541
for a lot of people, was such a
surrealistic thing that happened.

00:15:22.541 --> 00:15:26.583
And I remember that,
all Instagram was filled,

00:15:26.583 --> 00:15:28.750
my Instagram, and I think all of our

00:15:28.750 --> 00:15:31.333
Instagrams
were just basically filled

00:15:31.333 --> 00:15:36.333
with photos of corpses
and shellings and explosions

00:15:37.250 --> 00:15:40.666
especially like a year ago
you didn't even have to have

00:15:40.666 --> 00:15:44.708
like Telegram channels or check news
just because you're entering Instagram.

00:15:44.708 --> 00:15:48.166
And then you can see from the first,
like people who are like

00:15:48.166 --> 00:15:52.041
living there and seeing tanks from
their windows or something like that.

00:16:02.083 --> 00:16:05.666
My experience to interact with
social media changed like

00:16:05.666 --> 00:16:09.625
in the very first day of the war
because it was like weird feeling

00:16:09.625 --> 00:16:12.541
when you don't know
how to act and you

00:16:12.541 --> 00:16:15.291
just like don't know how
to live in this new reality.

00:16:15.291 --> 00:16:18.791
But you also feel some sort
of responsibility for what you post

00:16:18.791 --> 00:16:21.541
and you want to post something
useful for another people.

00:16:21.541 --> 00:16:25.333
Like now I use social media
more like to spread information

00:16:25.333 --> 00:16:27.041
of the crimes that happen in Ukraine.

00:16:27.041 --> 00:16:31.458
But at the time we were posting
a lot of like how to understand

00:16:31.458 --> 00:16:34.500
what's bombing you by sound
or like what to do

00:16:34.500 --> 00:16:37.500
when you hear explosions
and like, how to react.

00:16:38.166 --> 00:16:42.833
I think this is absolute transparency with what we are seeing in the war,

00:16:42.833 --> 00:16:44.583
it's like pornography of the war.

00:16:44.583 --> 00:16:49.125
We have access to the most graphic content

00:16:49.125 --> 00:16:53.041
without any censorship or pixelation.

00:16:53.041 --> 00:16:56.875
You could see dead bodies, you could see executed people,

00:16:56.875 --> 00:16:59.041
there is no place for imagination anymore,

00:16:59.041 --> 00:17:00.166
so we see everything.

00:17:10.750 --> 00:17:13.625
Documentation of a lot of
previous wars was based

00:17:13.625 --> 00:17:17.541
mostly on memories of
witnesses or victims.

00:17:17.541 --> 00:17:21.208
And many documentation
exist form of texts.

00:17:21.208 --> 00:17:23.791
Texts provoke imagination.

00:17:23.791 --> 00:17:29.041
In this war we see already
finished product as image.

00:17:29.041 --> 00:17:33.625
If you interested what is inside a body,
you could discover it in many ways

00:17:33.625 --> 00:17:37.250
watching the footage
from the war in Ukraine.

00:17:37.250 --> 00:17:41.916
Like everything you could even
was afraid to imagine

00:17:41.916 --> 00:17:43.125
you could see.

00:17:43.125 --> 00:17:44.916
Unfortunately.

00:17:52.666 --> 00:17:57.625
We all were thinking that if we will post as much as we can

00:17:57.625 --> 00:17:59.833
to describe what’s happening in our country,

00:17:59.833 --> 00:18:03.458
everybody will understand and other countries will stop it.

00:18:03.458 --> 00:18:06.208
So we would use our social media

00:18:06.208 --> 00:18:08.541
to just let other people know

00:18:08.541 --> 00:18:09.500
what is happening.

00:18:09.500 --> 00:18:11.916
It was like a scream

00:18:11.916 --> 00:18:14.750
“Look what’s happenning,
you should stop it now!”

00:18:28.041 --> 00:18:29.666
One after another!

00:18:29.666 --> 00:18:32.625
One after another, rocket from Transnistria!

00:18:33.208 --> 00:18:35.041
To Ukraine.

00:18:36.041 --> 00:18:37.916
Tough!

00:18:38.583 --> 00:18:41.333
I think for sure some

00:18:41.333 --> 00:18:45.125
seventy percent they skip it.
I think like that.

00:18:45.125 --> 00:18:46.458
But some of them

00:18:46.458 --> 00:18:49.291
I know few German guy or French,

00:18:49.291 --> 00:18:51.375
who realy like repost

00:18:51.375 --> 00:18:53.791
even some about war,

00:18:53.791 --> 00:18:55.875
information or they donate.

00:18:55.875 --> 00:18:56.875
But it’s not a lot.

00:18:56.875 --> 00:19:01.625
Like if I know ten people,
just three people, for example.

00:19:11.875 --> 00:19:13.958
Is there someone there?

00:19:13.958 --> 00:19:15.416
Where?

00:19:22.041 --> 00:19:24.458
Direct hit.

00:19:45.458 --> 00:19:47.541
When it was covid, my

00:19:47.541 --> 00:19:50.625
audience were more
Western oriented.

00:19:50.625 --> 00:19:54.500
But after full-scale
invasion, I just stopped

00:19:54.500 --> 00:19:56.875
being aimed that audience.

00:19:56.875 --> 00:19:59.291
So I basically was posting
more in Ukrainian

00:19:59.291 --> 00:20:00.875
sometimes in the English,

00:20:00.875 --> 00:20:04.791
but I think that mostly
I wanted to cheer up my friends

00:20:04.791 --> 00:20:06.291
and Ukrainian followers,

00:20:06.291 --> 00:20:10.291
so I think that most of the time
of like Western audience

00:20:10.291 --> 00:20:12.583
were not getting the jokes.

00:20:12.583 --> 00:20:14.416
Because, for example, in the beginning

00:20:14.416 --> 00:20:19.125
of full-scale invasion, we had this
situation where, a lot of shops closed,

00:20:19.125 --> 00:20:21.583
but there were some
people who would just

00:20:21.583 --> 00:20:23.875
break in the shop and
like, steal something.

00:20:23.875 --> 00:20:28.083
And they were taped to the,
you know, the street lamps?

00:20:28.583 --> 00:20:32.041
Somebody made the photo
and put a BALENCIAGA slogan

00:20:32.041 --> 00:20:33.583
on this photo and it was like,

00:20:33.583 --> 00:20:35.750
we were laughing so hard from it.

00:20:35.750 --> 00:20:38.083
And I was posting it and
I was having fun

00:20:38.083 --> 00:20:40.375
and some of my Berlin
followers were like,

00:20:40.375 --> 00:20:42.083
“You can’t say this”

00:20:42.083 --> 00:20:44.625
“It's not okay to do this”

00:20:44.625 --> 00:20:46.250
And I was like bitch,

00:20:46.250 --> 00:20:49.458
I hear explosions, I don’t give
give a fuck about your opinion.

00:20:49.458 --> 00:20:52.041
I will talk with you about it
when you will

00:20:52.041 --> 00:20:53.166
experience the same situation.

00:20:53.166 --> 00:20:56.583
If you're not experiencing
the same situation, we are not the same.

00:20:56.583 --> 00:20:58.375
You can say me shit, so

00:20:58.375 --> 00:20:59.458
please, just

00:20:59.458 --> 00:21:00.583
don’t talk to me about this.

00:21:00.583 --> 00:21:02.291
Because some of
my [Berlin] friends were like,

00:21:02.291 --> 00:21:04.166
“We can’t donate you money...”

00:21:04.166 --> 00:21:07.333
“If you're embracing
this kind of violent treatment”

00:21:07.333 --> 00:21:09.125
And I was like,
I'm not embracing anything,

00:21:09.125 --> 00:21:11.750
I'm just making fun of the
situation that happens,

00:21:11.750 --> 00:21:12.666
it’s just like

00:21:12.666 --> 00:21:16.625
it’s the most genuine
response to the stress.

00:21:16.625 --> 00:21:18.625
If you make fun of it,

00:21:18.625 --> 00:21:21.666
you’re trying to laugh about it,

00:21:21.666 --> 00:21:24.333
it becomes easier to cope.

00:21:30.333 --> 00:21:33.833
The worst jokes I ever heard,
which made me almost cry

00:21:33.833 --> 00:21:36.916
and some of them made me cry,
were made by soldiers, actually.

00:21:36.916 --> 00:21:39.291
Like this joke about these cigarettes

00:21:39.291 --> 00:21:42.166
[Elf bars] they end really fast.

00:21:42.166 --> 00:21:44.166
And soldiers were saying,
“The same as us”

00:21:44.166 --> 00:21:45.875
“We also end pretty fast”

00:21:45.875 --> 00:21:47.041
and you’re like, bitch,

00:21:47.041 --> 00:21:48.708
this is kind of really hardcore.

00:21:48.708 --> 00:21:50.416
It's not even funny.

00:21:50.416 --> 00:21:53.958
This joke, when I first saw it
on TikTok made me really cry.

00:21:54.708 --> 00:21:59.750
But, soldiers, they have this kind of sense of humor where they just

00:21:59.750 --> 00:22:02.500
joke about this in a really hardcore way

00:22:02.500 --> 00:22:04.875
just like to,
to relax a little bit.

00:22:05.958 --> 00:22:07.541
Yeah, well, he said that

00:22:07.541 --> 00:22:10.833
he himself has buried two civilians,

00:22:10.833 --> 00:22:13.958
and that it was quite nice of them that,

00:22:13.958 --> 00:22:17.500
they've only killed about five civilians.

00:22:17.500 --> 00:22:18.541
Nice people.

00:22:18.541 --> 00:22:23.041
When you in this amount of stress,
the only thing you can do is like,

00:22:23.041 --> 00:22:24.250
I don't know,
laugh about it?

00:22:24.250 --> 00:22:27.708
Because it's like the most
natural reaction of your brain.

00:22:27.708 --> 00:22:30.250
I have some friends of
mine who are soldiers

00:22:30.250 --> 00:22:34.500
and we talk about it,
but also I'm a heavy user of TikTok.

00:22:34.500 --> 00:22:37.125
So I see a lot of stuff on TikTok as well.

00:22:37.125 --> 00:22:40.125
And some of this stuff,
especially some stuff which is made

00:22:40.125 --> 00:22:43.250
by soldiers themselves, it's like

00:22:43.250 --> 00:22:45.791
really, really kind of hardcore and sad,

00:22:45.791 --> 00:22:48.541
but they laugh about it because like,

00:22:48.541 --> 00:22:51.250
what else you can do
in this kind of situation?

00:22:51.250 --> 00:22:59.833
“I see how the orc’s parachute did not open.”

00:23:00.541 --> 00:23:02.708
For greater stability.

00:23:16.333 --> 00:23:20.500
I got censored on Instagram,
for some time right now.

00:23:20.500 --> 00:23:23.416
I used meme as a media of critique,

00:23:23.416 --> 00:23:24.708
and I was like

00:23:24.708 --> 00:23:27.708
criticizing Russians for their lack of,

00:23:27.708 --> 00:23:32.333
will to fight for their freedom
and human right to be free.

00:23:32.333 --> 00:23:35.250
I made fun of them basically in memes.

00:23:35.250 --> 00:23:37.583
And they got pissed off because of this.

00:23:37.583 --> 00:23:39.208
And they started to report me.

00:23:39.208 --> 00:23:42.666
I grew up in the internet where you could
see a lot of different stuff,

00:23:42.666 --> 00:23:46.916
and it's nice when you can choose
your censorship yourself,

00:23:46.916 --> 00:23:50.250
when you can put it in your,
I don't know, settings

00:23:50.250 --> 00:23:54.041
which stuff you want to see,
which stuff you don't want to see.

00:23:54.041 --> 00:23:55.416
But yeah,

00:23:55.416 --> 00:23:58.583
I think it's better when, when you can,
censor something yourself.

00:23:58.583 --> 00:24:02.750
Not when you get censored
by some big corporation

00:24:03.291 --> 00:24:07.500
which is influencing everything around
like elections and stuff.

00:24:07.500 --> 00:24:10.833
Because Mark Zuckerberg
is a fucking lizard or something, I don’t know

00:24:10.833 --> 00:24:15.416
because in TikTok, it's easier
to see some information

00:24:15.416 --> 00:24:18.625
about some kind of genocides
than in Instagram,

00:24:18.625 --> 00:24:19.958
sometimes.

00:25:41.791 --> 00:25:44.916
To be honest,
for last few months,

00:25:44.916 --> 00:25:49.083
I don't think it's really helpful
to keep posting this stuff

00:25:49.083 --> 00:25:52.125
because I feel like most of

00:25:52.125 --> 00:25:56.041
just regular Europeans,
even like people that I knew here,

00:25:56.041 --> 00:25:59.958
I don't believe that they come
through these links and donate.

00:25:59.958 --> 00:26:03.666
I don't believe they even
read the stuff I post.

00:26:03.666 --> 00:26:05.041
I think most of them just,

00:26:05.041 --> 00:26:06.375
not everybody,
but I think

00:26:06.375 --> 00:26:08.583
most of them just like keep scrolling.

00:26:08.583 --> 00:26:12.833
But anyway,
I'm going to keep doing this till the war ends,

00:26:13.041 --> 00:26:14.166
so,

00:26:15.541 --> 00:26:17.833
you can unfollow me.

00:26:19.583 --> 00:26:24.541
Do you feel angry at the people
who you imagine keep scrolling?

00:26:24.541 --> 00:26:26.083
I feel angry

00:26:26.083 --> 00:26:27.791
at the people,

00:26:27.791 --> 00:26:30.291
at the same time
I could understand this.

00:26:31.041 --> 00:26:32.250
But,

00:26:32.250 --> 00:26:35.666
of course it's an
unpleasant feeling.

00:26:36.333 --> 00:26:38.416
I know that they’re not gonna

00:26:38.416 --> 00:26:42.750
feel empathy to this situation,
‘til something like this

00:26:43.375 --> 00:26:46.041
will happen to them.

00:26:46.041 --> 00:26:47.958
And I don't want

00:26:47.958 --> 00:26:51.916
things like this
to ever happen to anybody.

00:26:57.916 --> 00:27:00.875
Originally I'm from a not so big city

00:27:00.875 --> 00:27:03.541
on the East of Ukraine,

00:27:03.541 --> 00:27:06.166
which is super close to
the border with Russia.

00:27:06.666 --> 00:27:09.041
And we had

00:27:09.041 --> 00:27:09.875
everything there.

00:27:09.875 --> 00:27:14.250
We were building a
house for ten years,

00:27:14.250 --> 00:27:17.791
my father with his hands
and I was putting some bricks

00:27:17.791 --> 00:27:18.750
when I was younger.

00:27:18.750 --> 00:27:21.250
It was like a dream house of my parents.

00:27:21.250 --> 00:27:24.916
And then eventually the war actions

00:27:24.916 --> 00:27:29.041
started to be in the city
like where my family was living

00:27:29.041 --> 00:27:33.583
and we were worried for our father
very much because he was like,

00:27:33.583 --> 00:27:35.083
“I am holding”

00:27:35.083 --> 00:27:36.125
“This is ours”

00:27:36.125 --> 00:27:37.416
“I’m still here”

00:27:37.833 --> 00:27:39.541
I know why he was afraid.

00:27:39.541 --> 00:27:42.166
It's a war, it's war rules.

00:27:42.166 --> 00:27:46.041
No, ethical lalala bullshit.

00:27:46.041 --> 00:27:52.166
If you see the house that is empty,
probably you would broke the window,

00:27:52.166 --> 00:27:55.125
takes what's necessary for you and leave.

00:27:55.125 --> 00:27:57.041
So my father was like,

00:27:57.041 --> 00:28:00.708
if I leave,
I will not have anything anymore.

00:28:01.250 --> 00:28:04.250
So he was staying there
And then one day my mother called me

00:28:04.250 --> 00:28:06.458
and she said “Тато поїхав”

00:28:06.458 --> 00:28:10.208
It means our father, finally he escaped.

00:28:10.208 --> 00:28:11.208
He's not there anymore.

00:28:11.208 --> 00:28:12.833
And I was like [exhales]

00:28:13.375 --> 00:28:15.041
Then maybe

00:28:15.041 --> 00:28:20.333
two months later, we got the pictures
and videos from our neighbors

00:28:20.333 --> 00:28:23.333
that there is no roof
and everything is like

00:28:23.916 --> 00:28:26.916
nothing like, no wall.

00:28:27.166 --> 00:28:28.708
One wall was,

00:28:28.708 --> 00:28:32.666
A piano, this sad piano
that is standing in the,

00:28:32.958 --> 00:28:36.958
in this house
and everything is broken

00:28:39.166 --> 00:28:42.208
I remember these
videos, it’s like

00:28:42.208 --> 00:28:44.500
you cannot, you cannot believe it.

00:28:44.666 --> 00:28:46.375
It was yours.
Everything, you were

00:28:46.375 --> 00:28:49.916
imagining your golden years
of your life.

00:28:49.916 --> 00:28:52.958
Your children already grown up
with their families

00:28:52.958 --> 00:28:57.041
and you would gather all the family
in your own house that you built

00:28:57.041 --> 00:29:00.041
and you were working all your life
to build this house

00:29:00.166 --> 00:29:03.166
and now you don’t have anything.

00:30:00.833 --> 00:30:02.250
I can tell you that

00:30:02.250 --> 00:30:04.791
I was trying to make the list

00:30:04.791 --> 00:30:07.333
of what I never want to forget.

00:30:07.333 --> 00:30:10.333
I'm interested actually in the real photos

00:30:10.333 --> 00:30:14.875
because in a lot of photos you could not see dead bodies

00:30:14.875 --> 00:30:15.750
not censored.

00:30:15.750 --> 00:30:19.666
I was trying to find them in Telegram groups.

00:30:19.666 --> 00:30:24.583
And I'm saving these photos for myself for my private collection to not forget.

00:30:25.083 --> 00:30:29.333
I remember this little girl like four years old,

00:30:29.333 --> 00:30:35.041
And when the little girl was going to the lesson with her Mum

00:30:35.041 --> 00:30:38.375
and the rocket hit this place where they was going.

00:30:38.375 --> 00:30:41.750
And this totally destroyed the body.

00:30:41.750 --> 00:30:45.875
And the Mother survived and I follow her Mother because now she,

00:30:45.875 --> 00:30:47.333
because now she

00:30:47.333 --> 00:30:51.750
trying to tell the followers how she recovers

00:30:51.750 --> 00:30:55.166
and these followers is the only [thing]

00:30:55.166 --> 00:30:58.250
she has now because she just lose the only child,

00:30:58.250 --> 00:30:59.583
because she has no husband,

00:30:59.583 --> 00:31:03.625
and the child was the only what she has in her life.

00:31:10.750 --> 00:31:12.166
There was a

00:31:12.166 --> 00:31:17.750
kind of viral picture that was saying

00:31:18.375 --> 00:31:21.916
this woman that is dead

00:31:21.916 --> 00:31:23.958
and you can see a nail with a heart,

00:31:23.958 --> 00:31:28.708
it was a very famous picture, a woman,
she was someone's Mother, someone's wife,

00:31:28.708 --> 00:31:30.291
someone's Aunt.

00:31:30.291 --> 00:31:34.291
So the picture was saying,
that is my body laying there.

00:31:34.291 --> 00:31:35.791
I was killed there.

00:31:35.791 --> 00:31:37.250
You can imagine that

00:31:37.250 --> 00:31:39.791
you also could lay there

00:31:39.791 --> 00:31:41.458
you also could be dead.

00:31:41.458 --> 00:31:43.583
You feel it like it is you wounded.

00:31:43.583 --> 00:31:45.375
It is you raped.

00:31:45.375 --> 00:31:47.583
It is you killed.
You know?

00:31:47.583 --> 00:31:50.208
Difficult to explain,
but somehow

00:31:50.208 --> 00:31:52.958
it really works like this.

00:31:52.958 --> 00:31:56.625
It's like generational pain.

00:31:57.083 --> 00:32:00.083
What we feel right now.

00:32:01.375 --> 00:32:04.375
I'm kind of safe, but still,

00:32:05.166 --> 00:32:07.666
I'm cut on pieces of my soul,

00:32:07.666 --> 00:32:08.875
my heart,
cut up in pieces.

00:32:08.875 --> 00:32:13.041
And every time I see something,
I'm very touched,

00:32:13.041 --> 00:32:14.250
with every story.

00:32:14.541 --> 00:32:19.250
So that's why this friend told me not to

00:32:20.666 --> 00:32:21.791
share it so much.

00:32:21.791 --> 00:32:22.666
Because

00:32:23.500 --> 00:32:26.416
in the moment you do not think
like if you should or shouldn't,

00:32:26.416 --> 00:32:29.458
you're just there
because it’s yours.

00:32:29.458 --> 00:32:30.583
Your family,

00:32:30.583 --> 00:32:32.083
your

00:32:32.083 --> 00:32:33.041
people,

00:32:33.041 --> 00:32:35.625
your hometown,

00:32:35.625 --> 00:32:36.791
or the place where

00:32:36.791 --> 00:32:40.625
you were visiting with your friends
or with your family when you were younger.

00:32:40.625 --> 00:32:43.625
And now it's all like this.

00:32:44.041 --> 00:32:46.250
And of course, you can feel it

00:32:46.250 --> 00:32:48.083
even if you don't feel it physically.

00:32:55.916 --> 00:33:01.625
“This morning's collection contains the photograph
of what might be a man's body, or a woman's...”

00:33:01.625 --> 00:33:04.833
“...it is so mutilated that it might, on the
other hand, be the body of a pig...”

00:33:04.833 --> 00:33:07.416
“But those certainly are dead children...”

00:33:07.416 --> 00:33:13.500
"And that undoubtedly is the section of a house.
A bomb has torn open the side..."

00:33:13.500 --> 00:33:19.333
“...there is still a birdcage hanging in
what was presumably the sitting room.”

00:34:52.875 --> 00:34:54.875
There was a few times

00:34:54.875 --> 00:34:57.625
where it was too much for me

00:34:58.666 --> 00:35:00.458
I mean social media and all this

00:35:00.458 --> 00:35:04.041
influence of social media on me
and my emotional state.

00:35:04.458 --> 00:35:08.208
And I remember there was a time
where I was like, okay, I cannot

00:35:08.375 --> 00:35:09.875
I do not have space for this.

00:35:09.875 --> 00:35:11.625
I cannot stand it.

00:35:11.625 --> 00:35:14.541
And I remember I said no

00:35:14.541 --> 00:35:17.333
to Instagram for two months.

00:35:17.333 --> 00:35:18.458
I did a break.

00:35:19.208 --> 00:35:23.166
I remember this very clearly it was

00:35:24.041 --> 00:35:27.625
when the Bucha photographs

00:35:28.541 --> 00:35:32.541
popped up in the internet
like when the Bucha was deoccupied.

00:35:33.041 --> 00:35:35.750
and this couple,

00:35:35.750 --> 00:35:39.541
this friends, they were saying the guy
actually the boyfriend of my friend,

00:35:40.166 --> 00:35:45.333
he said, “You know, Ksenia,
you shouldn't watch this photos”

00:35:45.458 --> 00:35:50.333
“I know it's important for you
and you want to be into this”

00:35:50.708 --> 00:35:53.416
“but it would be too heavy for you”

00:35:53.416 --> 00:35:55.666
“You will not get rid of these photos”

00:35:56.958 --> 00:35:59.625
I saw a few stories about,

00:36:01.625 --> 00:36:03.666
these killings and rapings,

00:36:03.666 --> 00:36:06.916
and really cruel things that you did not

00:36:06.916 --> 00:36:10.291
you could not believe
that it can happen now.

00:36:10.291 --> 00:36:15.583
And I was like okay,
I will disconnect.

00:36:15.583 --> 00:36:18.125
It was my decision.

00:36:18.125 --> 00:36:19.875
Maybe it was not fair.

00:36:19.875 --> 00:36:25.125
It's like closing the eyes
in the middle of genocide.

00:36:25.125 --> 00:36:26.083
I dunno.

00:36:26.083 --> 00:36:28.500
But yeah,

00:36:28.500 --> 00:36:31.250
if I will be broken, then
who will take care of me?

00:36:31.250 --> 00:36:34.250
I should take care of myself.

00:36:36.666 --> 00:36:38.208
It did help a lot.

00:36:38.208 --> 00:36:42.958
You're coming back to these
simple basic life values.

00:36:43.375 --> 00:36:46.458
You are not distracted.

00:36:46.458 --> 00:36:50.958
The life that is in the reach of your hand

00:36:51.375 --> 00:36:55.916
or in the reach of your sight
or your eyes is important.

00:36:55.916 --> 00:36:58.333
What is happening now is important.

00:36:58.333 --> 00:37:01.333
And sometimes we live

00:37:01.333 --> 00:37:04.750
more with a lot of other things.

00:37:04.750 --> 00:37:09.333
So that was kind of freedom,
I would say. Freedom to live my life.

00:37:09.500 --> 00:37:11.041
That helped a lot.

00:37:11.041 --> 00:37:16.375
Yeah, of course not seeing all those
horrible things, not reading stories

00:37:16.666 --> 00:37:20.666
because we can read something
and then to forget or see something

00:37:20.666 --> 00:37:24.791
and just continue with
your like routine as I said

00:37:24.791 --> 00:37:28.041
but it's on your shelf in your head

00:37:28.041 --> 00:37:30.708
and it influenced a lot your psyche.

00:37:30.708 --> 00:37:36.750
So for that moment it,
it was needed to reload a bit

00:37:36.750 --> 00:37:42.041
to recharge this container with all this
like emotional baggage that I got.

00:40:28.583 --> 00:40:32.541
It was coming up on two years
since the start of the full-scale invasion

00:40:32.541 --> 00:40:38.916
and although we were aware of the atrocity and destruction
that had taken place, and was continuing to take place,

00:40:38.916 --> 00:40:46.458
our awareness was primarily upheld through the
representations of this destruction through pixels—on our phones.

00:40:49.291 --> 00:40:57.125
And so, Liuba and I decided to travel to Ukraine, and retrace
the steps of the 2022 Russian invaders of the Kyiv region

00:40:57.125 --> 00:41:02.041
with the aim to witness with our own eyes,
and document with our own cameras,

00:41:02.041 --> 00:41:07.166
the various sites of
destruction they left behind.

00:44:10.333 --> 00:44:14.083
Bucha and Irpin are towns
in the Kyiv region, which suffered

00:44:14.083 --> 00:44:17.916
profoundly in the first
weeks of the war.

00:44:19.416 --> 00:44:23.666
in April 2022, when the Ukrainian
army recaptured these areas

00:44:23.666 --> 00:44:26.625
the atrocities that took place
were quickly discovered.

00:44:28.458 --> 00:44:30.416
Innocent civilians tortured,

00:44:30.416 --> 00:44:33.750
raped and massacred by the Russian army.

00:44:36.166 --> 00:44:38.083
It was near this region that Yarick

00:44:38.083 --> 00:44:41.083
was sheltering at the start of the war.

00:44:42.333 --> 00:44:46.208
As both Liuba and Yarick highlighted
at the start of this film,

00:44:46.208 --> 00:44:50.041
anyone trying to escape these
areas by car, during those times

00:44:50.041 --> 00:44:52.291
would be targeted by the Russians.

00:44:53.541 --> 00:45:00.291
If those cars contained women, children
or the elderly, it didn't matter.

00:45:02.291 --> 00:45:05.583
Since the deoccupation,
the Ukrainian authorities have gathered up

00:45:05.583 --> 00:45:09.333
many of the destroyed civilian cars
they found and left them here,

00:45:09.708 --> 00:45:12.541
as a form of monument.

00:45:16.250 --> 00:45:20.416
One of these cars may very well belong to
the childhood friend of Liuba’s mother,

00:45:20.416 --> 00:45:22.875
who was killed whilst trying to escape.

00:45:22.875 --> 00:45:28.041
Along with her husband
and along with her 14 year old son.

00:45:31.041 --> 00:45:34.833
Investigations are still ongoing,
but so far authorities have documented

00:45:34.833 --> 00:45:38.791
more than 9,000 war crimes in these areas.

00:45:38.791 --> 00:45:41.791
During only this five week period.

00:45:46.708 --> 00:45:53.458
Bucha and Irpin had a combined population
of less than 100,000 people.

00:46:02.375 --> 00:46:04.791
Even now,
nearly three years later,

00:46:04.791 --> 00:46:07.458
there are buildings still left in ruin.

00:46:07.458 --> 00:46:10.250
And yet these scars on
the landscape are nothing

00:46:10.250 --> 00:46:14.958
next to the scars on the psyches of those
who survived the massacres.

00:46:34.541 --> 00:46:38.125
Our guides for this day of
shooting were a young couple

00:46:38.125 --> 00:46:40.416
Herman and Marina.

00:46:40.416 --> 00:46:44.208
At the end of our shooting day they
offered to tell a story on camera.

00:46:44.208 --> 00:46:47.625
The story of when a missile
struck their neighbourhood.

00:46:52.125 --> 00:46:54.083
So after we'd seen,

00:46:55.666 --> 00:46:59.875
the site, the fire,
the people panicking

00:46:59.875 --> 00:47:04.416
and realized our neighbors
were dying in there

00:47:06.208 --> 00:47:08.333
There was nothing else we could do.

00:47:08.333 --> 00:47:13.166
And, of course, there was no,
no electricity, no connection, no nothing.

00:47:13.958 --> 00:47:17.208
So, like, there were no
more plans for that day.

00:47:17.208 --> 00:47:20.583
So we decided to visit my mom,
who lives in the building next to the one

00:47:20.875 --> 00:47:23.875
that, got damaged.

00:47:23.916 --> 00:47:27.875
So, we went to her house,
we knew she was at home

00:47:27.875 --> 00:47:32.333
because she called us before,
to tell the story of how she saw

00:47:32.333 --> 00:47:35.916
the missile flying right outside
of her window a couple of meters away.

00:47:36.166 --> 00:47:39.125
I'm sorry we went to your Mom also

00:47:39.125 --> 00:47:42.333
because we thought
that she can be in terrible panic.

00:47:42.458 --> 00:47:47.583
So, we wanted to comfort her,
if it is needed.

00:47:47.583 --> 00:47:48.875
Yeah. You're right.

00:47:48.875 --> 00:47:51.166
One of the first things I thought,

00:47:51.166 --> 00:47:52.875
if I can help,

00:47:52.875 --> 00:47:55.875
if I can help to maybe rescue people

00:47:56.125 --> 00:48:01.833
or something else, but, immediately after
explosions, there were so many military,

00:48:01.833 --> 00:48:07.041
so many police, so many firefighters,
and everything was done

00:48:07.041 --> 00:48:12.583
in the moment that is needed
to protect and to rescue people.

00:48:12.791 --> 00:48:15.791
So we went to Marina’s

00:48:15.916 --> 00:48:16.833
Mom's house.

00:48:16.833 --> 00:48:19.916
And my mom, she's
like a, she's a very,

00:48:20.833 --> 00:48:23.041
I don't know how to explain this,

00:48:23.041 --> 00:48:25.833
but she's a very classy woman.

00:48:26.791 --> 00:48:28.333
So right away, she offered us

00:48:28.333 --> 00:48:31.333
some tea and, some cake,

00:48:31.791 --> 00:48:34.875
and we were, like, sharing
the news with her because she didn't know,

00:48:35.666 --> 00:48:37.125
what had happened, exactly.

00:48:37.125 --> 00:48:40.375
She knew it was something really close,
but she didn't see anything

00:48:40.375 --> 00:48:43.375
because there was no news,
because there was no connection.

00:48:43.750 --> 00:48:46.625
So I showed her the videos and everything.

00:48:46.625 --> 00:48:50.375
And we were drinking tea from her fancy

00:48:50.583 --> 00:48:54.041
tea cups and eating her fancy cake

00:48:54.333 --> 00:48:58.416
while our neighbors
were dying in the next house.

00:48:59.083 --> 00:49:01.083
And that was such a surreal feeling.

00:49:01.083 --> 00:49:03.166
Like, we're enjoying life

00:49:04.166 --> 00:49:05.541
at the moment

00:49:05.541 --> 00:49:08.208
when people exactly like us

00:49:08.208 --> 00:49:11.208
are dying in in the building
right next to us.

00:49:11.583 --> 00:49:13.250
That was really weird.

00:49:13.250 --> 00:49:15.791
And like, but we still
enjoyed the cake.

00:49:15.791 --> 00:49:18.791
We enjoyed the cake
because what else you can do?

00:49:23.666 --> 00:49:28.250
Herman now serves in the Ukrainian
armed forces as a drone pilot.

00:49:28.250 --> 00:49:31.625
Marina works as an animation artist.

00:50:19.541 --> 00:50:23.041
Ok, at first they said it's
a threat of ballistic rockets,

00:50:24.125 --> 00:50:27.500
which has come from the Black Sea,
which means Crimea.

00:50:28.208 --> 00:50:33.041
So it's still, time
‘til they will come to Kyiv.

00:50:33.041 --> 00:50:34.541
If they will come.

00:50:34.541 --> 00:50:36.166
Nah but I've read before that

00:50:36.166 --> 00:50:39.833
they can come from Crimea
to Kyiv in like six minutes.

00:50:40.666 --> 00:50:42.041
Probably, yes.

00:50:42.041 --> 00:50:42.333
Yeah.

00:50:42.333 --> 00:50:45.083
It's been like fucking,

00:50:45.083 --> 00:50:47.583
I guess we've got, like, two minutes.

00:50:51.625 --> 00:50:54.625
Just the natural side.

00:50:57.208 --> 00:50:59.916
I mean I feel like it's a trick question.

00:50:59.916 --> 00:51:02.166
Like there's no right answer.

00:51:02.166 --> 00:51:03.166
It's either

00:51:03.166 --> 00:51:08.500
you don't like the way I look naturally,
or you don't think I'm good at make-up.

00:51:16.750 --> 00:51:18.500
Now they said

00:51:18.500 --> 00:51:21.083
four of them come back to Crimea.

00:51:21.250 --> 00:51:24.041
That’s the, the jets?

00:51:24.041 --> 00:51:26.750
No what comes back to Crimea?
The jets?

00:51:26.750 --> 00:51:29.625
Yeah, but not all of them
like four of them.

00:51:29.625 --> 00:51:30.500
I don't know how many.

00:51:30.500 --> 00:51:32.125
But come back from where?

00:51:32.125 --> 00:51:33.041
From Odesa or?

00:51:33.041 --> 00:51:34.500
Yeah, from Odesa.

00:51:34.500 --> 00:51:38.291
I don't know, but they said, like,
stay in the shelters ‘til you see

00:51:38.583 --> 00:51:39.583
second siren.

00:51:41.458 --> 00:51:43.791
If I will die, I will die beautiful.

00:51:43.791 --> 00:51:45.916
At least half of me.

00:51:49.416 --> 00:51:51.041
Don’t show it to your parents.

00:51:56.750 --> 00:52:02.500
As we travelled back to Berlin, I had some
unsettling thoughts I couldn't escape.

00:52:04.750 --> 00:52:06.916
I couldn't help but think
about what I'd seen

00:52:06.916 --> 00:52:09.916
and the uselessness of my seeing it.

00:52:14.375 --> 00:52:18.333
How I couldn’t envision it
translating into anything helpful.

00:52:22.333 --> 00:52:24.250
I suppose I was imagining that

00:52:24.250 --> 00:52:29.375
when I would be confronted with the
remnants and reality of this war in person,

00:52:29.375 --> 00:52:31.916
outside of the pixels
and the algorithms,

00:52:31.916 --> 00:52:34.916
that I would be deeply affected.

00:52:37.208 --> 00:52:40.208
But I wasn't.

00:52:41.125 --> 00:52:44.125
At least not to the degree I'd expected.

00:52:45.458 --> 00:52:51.250
It’s as if I’d consumed so much graphic content
and imagery around these atrocities already

00:52:51.250 --> 00:52:57.166
that the war had become
almost an abstraction in my mind.

00:52:58.583 --> 00:53:01.041
Instead of being an antidote
for my numbness,

00:53:01.041 --> 00:53:04.541
being there in person was more
so an indicator of how deep this

00:53:04.541 --> 00:53:06.750
well of desensitisation goes,

00:53:06.750 --> 00:53:11.041
and how broken the cycle of consumption
and feeling has become.

00:53:13.041 --> 00:53:14.125
I didn't feel nothing,

00:53:14.125 --> 00:53:17.333
but I didn't feel everything
I thought a person should.

00:53:18.666 --> 00:53:20.875
I felt wrong.

00:53:20.875 --> 00:53:23.583
and the only hope I had was
that the images we’d captured

00:53:23.583 --> 00:53:26.583
would be helpful somehow.

00:53:27.083 --> 00:53:28.916
But even then, after observing

00:53:28.916 --> 00:53:32.750
how warped my own response
to suffering and destruction had become

00:53:32.750 --> 00:53:36.500
due to my excessive familiarity
with such images online,

00:53:36.500 --> 00:53:39.666
I couldn't help but wonder
if showing more would help,

00:53:39.666 --> 00:53:43.750
or instead become part of the very
problem they're intended to solve.

00:53:45.416 --> 00:53:48.416
I still don't know.

00:54:14.250 --> 00:54:16.041
It feels,

00:54:18.041 --> 00:54:20.083
More staged.

00:54:24.291 --> 00:54:28.375
When you see it by
your own eyes,

00:54:28.375 --> 00:54:32.833
you can’t deny that it
is what happened.

00:54:32.833 --> 00:54:34.041
But,

00:54:34.958 --> 00:54:39.041
when you see it on pictures it’s,

00:54:39.041 --> 00:54:41.458
it’s just documentation.

00:54:42.333 --> 00:54:45.625
Not like ‘just documentation’, but...

00:54:46.041 --> 00:54:47.666
It’s,

00:54:49.125 --> 00:54:52.083
pictured.

00:54:55.125 --> 00:54:58.083
On a screen.

00:54:59.958 --> 00:55:02.958
When it was first
massive attack on,

00:55:03.333 --> 00:55:07.416
Ukraine and Kyiv in particular
because it's my hometown,

00:55:07.416 --> 00:55:10.541
I remember I was so
shocked like I couldn't like,

00:55:10.958 --> 00:55:14.750
eat, I couldn't like think about
other stuff for a few days.

00:55:14.750 --> 00:55:16.041
I was just like,

00:55:16.041 --> 00:55:20.166
and now when it's
tense or even more.

00:55:20.833 --> 00:55:23.083
I’m just like,
“Okay, it's happening again”.

00:55:23.083 --> 00:55:26.083
I feel that it's the new reality
that we live in.

00:55:26.458 --> 00:55:27.083
It's like,

00:55:27.500 --> 00:55:30.500
the thing that was unbelievable
in the past, just,

00:55:32.041 --> 00:55:33.666
Become normal.

00:55:33.666 --> 00:55:36.458
And it's the
most scary

00:55:36.458 --> 00:55:39.458
part of war for
me because,

00:55:40.875 --> 00:55:43.708
you can be

00:55:43.708 --> 00:55:44.708
on my own experience,

00:55:44.708 --> 00:55:47.083
you can be

00:55:48.416 --> 00:55:51.375
oversensitive to everything
or completely numb.

00:55:51.375 --> 00:55:53.916
You don't find

00:55:53.916 --> 00:55:55.916
You don't know how to react
normally because

00:55:55.916 --> 00:55:58.458
normality is just something from

00:55:58.458 --> 00:56:00.708
a past life.

00:56:10.333 --> 00:56:11.458
With my brother

00:56:11.458 --> 00:56:14.916
I haven't seen him for more than a year.

00:56:17.125 --> 00:56:18.666
For sure more than a
year we didn’t see him,

00:56:18.666 --> 00:56:20.583
maybe two years I didn't see him.

00:56:20.583 --> 00:56:24.458
And now when he is gone forever,

00:56:25.500 --> 00:56:29.333
I, for me, like nothing is changed.

00:56:29.333 --> 00:56:31.875
I did not see,
I was not in the funeral.

00:56:31.875 --> 00:56:32.875
I did not see.

00:56:32.875 --> 00:56:36.375
I was only what
I was seeing like pictures.

00:56:36.375 --> 00:56:39.416
I remember I was laying on this bed and

00:56:40.458 --> 00:56:42.333
I saw pictures from the funeral.

00:56:42.333 --> 00:56:46.833
And there I was like, okay,
like I'm there and I'm trying to,

00:56:46.833 --> 00:56:50.041
make it closer to see the

00:56:50.625 --> 00:56:54.041
his body to realise like, that it's him.

00:56:57.291 --> 00:56:58.416
I cried.

00:56:58.416 --> 00:57:00.041
A bit.

00:57:00.041 --> 00:57:03.041
But still, I think it's not enough.

00:57:03.541 --> 00:57:05.291
I feel guilt that I do not feel

00:57:05.291 --> 00:57:08.291
enough of this.

00:57:09.291 --> 00:57:11.208
And I was talking about him.

00:57:11.208 --> 00:57:15.083
I was speaking just to, you know,

00:57:17.375 --> 00:57:20.166
as an act of memory.

00:57:22.041 --> 00:57:25.291
But I do not really understand
that it’s happened.

00:57:25.291 --> 00:57:28.041
Because physically I am here.

00:57:31.625 --> 00:57:33.791
In the beginning
you’re saying,

00:57:33.791 --> 00:57:35.750
“Hi, I’m Ksenia” lalala.

00:57:35.750 --> 00:57:36.875
“I'm from Ukraine”

00:57:36.875 --> 00:57:40.166
And you can see these eyes,

00:57:40.166 --> 00:57:42.375
or you can see the face of this person

00:57:42.375 --> 00:57:46.125
in front of you that is
feeling so sad about you.

00:57:46.708 --> 00:57:48.166
But I don't want to be pitied.

00:57:48.166 --> 00:57:49.458
I don't want to be pitied.

00:57:49.458 --> 00:57:50.916
I'm like, it's fine.

00:57:50.916 --> 00:57:52.708
I’m alive.

00:57:52.708 --> 00:57:53.833
Like, come on.

00:57:53.833 --> 00:57:54.958
Yeah.

00:57:54.958 --> 00:57:56.583
And you are trying to play cool.

00:57:56.583 --> 00:57:58.125
I would say like this

00:57:58.125 --> 00:58:00.083
You are

00:58:00.083 --> 00:58:02.458
having this mask,

00:58:02.916 --> 00:58:04.041
all right, I'm fine.

00:58:04.708 --> 00:58:07.875
because you don't want to be pitied
and you don't want to

00:58:08.541 --> 00:58:10.041
- To feel like you’re a victim

00:58:10.041 --> 00:58:12.875
Yeah, yeah. You don't want
to feel like you're a victim

00:58:12.875 --> 00:58:14.833
and in fact,

00:58:15.458 --> 00:58:19.125
it turned to a chronical disease

00:58:19.125 --> 00:58:22.125
that you're fine,
like you're fine.

00:58:22.583 --> 00:58:25.583
And now,
even if I have a right not to be fine

00:58:26.416 --> 00:58:29.083
and you're still, like,

00:58:29.083 --> 00:58:31.375
in this state where you're

00:58:32.041 --> 00:58:33.458
“Nah, I'm good”

00:58:33.875 --> 00:58:34.708
“Let’s go”

00:58:34.708 --> 00:58:37.583
Sometimes, I go to these protests

00:58:37.583 --> 00:58:41.291
before, especially, just to dive

00:58:41.291 --> 00:58:44.250
into these emotions; collective pain.

00:58:44.250 --> 00:58:49.375
I just want to feel the pain
because I am like

00:58:49.750 --> 00:58:52.666
not noticing it in anymore.

00:58:52.666 --> 00:58:56.500
But I actually feel it,
it's there all the time.

00:58:56.500 --> 00:58:59.416
You just learn how to not notice it.

00:58:59.416 --> 00:59:02.958
So now I definitely feel frozen.

00:59:03.250 --> 00:59:06.500
Even with this death of my brother,

00:59:06.500 --> 00:59:09.458
I’m still fine.

00:59:09.458 --> 00:59:11.583
And I’m, I’m

00:59:11.583 --> 00:59:13.333
scared about this.

00:59:13.333 --> 00:59:15.916
Like, I’m really scared.
Like, that's not right.

00:59:15.916 --> 00:59:17.750
That's not how it should be.

00:59:29.750 --> 00:59:31.166
Yeah it’s also a thing that

00:59:31.166 --> 00:59:35.041
even if you have this trauma and
you're living in this trauma still,

00:59:35.541 --> 00:59:37.666
you're not always thinking
about this trauma.

00:59:37.666 --> 00:59:41.375
So I'm not always thinking about that
I leave Ukraine.

00:59:41.375 --> 00:59:44.583
I'm really sad about it.

00:59:44.833 --> 00:59:47.916
that I was forced to
leave my country.

00:59:47.916 --> 00:59:50.958
But I'm not living in
this trauma everyday.

00:59:50.958 --> 00:59:54.125
I still can have, nice
and good emotions.

00:59:54.125 --> 00:59:57.583
I can enjoy in my life

00:59:57.583 --> 01:00:01.208
and in the same time,
I can hate how I'm living in my life.

01:00:01.208 --> 01:00:03.833
So it's always changing from day to day.

01:00:03.833 --> 01:00:06.041
like sometimes
it happens with some people,

01:00:06.041 --> 01:00:08.958
but I think only with
stupid people who think that

01:00:08.958 --> 01:00:12.291
if you're enjoying your life, if you’re smiling,
then you don't have trauma,

01:00:12.291 --> 01:00:15.958
then you're not worried at the same time,
then everything okay with you,

01:00:15.958 --> 01:00:19.791
and you, for example,
don't need help because you're smiling,

01:00:19.791 --> 01:00:23.041
you're drinking and even can
be wasted or something.

01:00:23.041 --> 01:00:23.958
And then like,

01:00:23.958 --> 01:00:27.125
“you’re then okay, you go to clubs”
Or something.

01:00:27.125 --> 01:00:30.750
But, no.
You can feel both

01:00:30.750 --> 01:00:31.958
ways of feelings.

01:00:31.958 --> 01:00:36.916
You can be in general really sad about
what's going on, but still enjoying life.

01:00:36.916 --> 01:00:41.041
And I think it's the only way
how you can survive your trauma

01:00:41.041 --> 01:00:42.958
of escaping your country.

01:00:43.291 --> 01:00:48.250
Try to find these little moments
of enjoying your life because

01:00:48.791 --> 01:00:52.041
if you will be just suffering
all the time, nothing will happen.

01:00:52.041 --> 01:00:53.666
You will not help your country with this.

01:00:53.666 --> 01:00:56.166
You just will be ruined yourself.

01:00:56.166 --> 01:00:57.541
And it's all and then die.

01:01:03.666 --> 01:01:06.541
We also, in the same time, can
have some other troubles

01:01:06.875 --> 01:01:09.208
that, not about Ukraine.

01:01:09.833 --> 01:01:13.500
You can have your personal problems
right now and other traumas

01:01:13.500 --> 01:01:15.333
and it can be combining all of that

01:01:15.333 --> 01:01:19.750
and it's a really, really horrible
mix of feelings, can be.

01:01:44.416 --> 01:01:46.083
And now it's kind of harder

01:01:46.083 --> 01:01:50.166
because I can’t just call
my Mother whenever I want.

01:01:50.166 --> 01:01:53.708
I just wait till particular time
when they have electricity

01:01:53.708 --> 01:01:55.625
and they have access
to the internet.

01:01:55.625 --> 01:01:58.625
And it's, with time, become
harder and harder.

01:02:04.333 --> 01:02:07.458
And also I think it's kind of a defensive
mechanism of mine,

01:02:08.416 --> 01:02:11.583
I feel really weird
because I feel that like

01:02:13.375 --> 01:02:17.500
It seems like so far that it almost fades away,
like my,

01:02:17.500 --> 01:02:19.583
connections, my life,

01:02:19.583 --> 01:02:22.125
my bondings, my

01:02:23.833 --> 01:02:24.833
family, my friends.

01:02:24.833 --> 01:02:27.458
Just like

01:02:27.458 --> 01:02:31.291
I feel we live life in
a different dimension.

01:02:31.291 --> 01:02:33.041
because I'm here and they

01:02:34.125 --> 01:02:37.125
still in Ukraine.

01:02:39.250 --> 01:02:41.083
Ukranian girls right now,

01:02:41.083 --> 01:02:44.208
they want to fall in love so badly

01:02:44.625 --> 01:02:48.750
because you want to feel something
just like something.

01:02:49.083 --> 01:02:51.791
I don't know that
will shake your soul.

01:02:51.791 --> 01:02:54.750
yeah, just some emotions
because you are like

01:02:54.750 --> 01:02:57.750
stagnant with your emotions.

01:02:58.125 --> 01:03:00.458
The side effect.

01:03:00.458 --> 01:03:03.541
I have to say that I'm the
person who is looking on,

01:03:03.541 --> 01:03:06.458
very graphic content
for two years already,

01:03:06.458 --> 01:03:08.125
a few hours per day minimum.

01:03:08.125 --> 01:03:09.958
But I'm working with this, so

01:03:10.541 --> 01:03:12.291
Of course it's changed me.

01:03:12.291 --> 01:03:15.333
It's a little bit reduced my sensitivity.

01:03:15.333 --> 01:03:19.083
maybe because I'm an artist
and I'm really more familiar with anatomy

01:03:19.083 --> 01:03:20.541
than maybe other people.

01:03:20.541 --> 01:03:22.208
Maybe it’s easier a little bit for me,

01:03:22.208 --> 01:03:24.333
but of course, I have limitation, and I'm

01:03:24.333 --> 01:03:29.041
not looking on execution of captured
people, on execution of civilians.

01:03:29.041 --> 01:03:31.958
It's not my subject, I would say.

01:03:31.958 --> 01:03:33.875
The main reason I’m working
with these images

01:03:34.083 --> 01:03:36.583
is to understand in what
world we live now

01:03:36.583 --> 01:03:40.125
and is it possible to analyse
it in a recent moment?

01:03:40.125 --> 01:03:42.833
The history is developing
in a recent moment,

01:03:42.833 --> 01:03:45.083
we don’t have any distance,
we don’t have any

01:03:45.083 --> 01:03:46.166
perspective.

01:03:46.166 --> 01:03:47.833
Historical perspective.

01:03:47.833 --> 01:03:51.375
We are acting right now, and,
could we write history right now?

01:03:51.666 --> 01:03:53.166
I spend

01:03:53.166 --> 01:03:57.458
a big part of my private time
to make the person understand

01:03:57.458 --> 01:03:59.833
what’s going on in my country.

01:03:59.833 --> 01:04:03.041
And I always come back
in these feelings again.

01:04:03.041 --> 01:04:05.541
So I think

01:04:05.541 --> 01:04:08.541
I'm still feeling same anger.

01:04:09.041 --> 01:04:11.208
And this is the kind of anger,

01:04:11.208 --> 01:04:14.375
which I think will never leave me.

01:04:14.583 --> 01:04:17.208
And I don't want that
I lose this feeling.

01:04:17.208 --> 01:04:21.416
Because this feeling gets
me the power to do something.

01:04:30.083 --> 01:04:33.333
Our intention to spread awareness
and actually help.

01:04:33.333 --> 01:04:39.375
It might work opposite
when it becomes normal.

01:04:39.375 --> 01:04:42.458
and people just don't pay attention
on this anymore.

01:04:43.875 --> 01:04:46.875
Also, that's how news works.

01:04:47.250 --> 01:04:48.541
In the beginning of war.

01:04:48.541 --> 01:04:55.750
it was a feeling of world solidarity
that everybody

01:04:55.750 --> 01:04:59.375
in the civilized world
stand with Ukraine.

01:05:00.250 --> 01:05:01.833
But now, two years later,

01:05:02.833 --> 01:05:05.708
almost two years later,

01:05:07.291 --> 01:05:10.583
people just start treating this war like

01:05:12.333 --> 01:05:14.125
just some war that’s happening.

01:05:14.791 --> 01:05:17.375
It's not in news right now.

01:05:17.375 --> 01:05:19.333
It's not an

01:05:19.333 --> 01:05:20.750
event.
It's not shocking.

01:05:20.750 --> 01:05:22.500
It's not,

01:05:22.500 --> 01:05:23.416
provoking thoughts,

01:05:23.416 --> 01:05:26.458
It's just like something
that happens in this territory.

01:05:27.625 --> 01:05:30.791
And that's the reality

01:05:32.083 --> 01:05:36.708
of people’s attention and of how

01:05:36.708 --> 01:05:39.708
social media works and how

01:05:39.708 --> 01:05:41.083
images works.

01:05:43.500 --> 01:05:47.375
It’s not working anymore.

01:05:47.375 --> 01:05:48.625
And,

01:05:49.916 --> 01:05:51.916
apparently

01:05:51.916 --> 01:05:55.750
should be something more shocking,
more provoking

01:05:55.750 --> 01:05:58.750
to grab people's attention again like,

01:05:58.750 --> 01:06:01.041
atomic bomb probably, or something

01:06:02.166 --> 01:06:05.166
extremely violent.

01:06:05.458 --> 01:06:09.333
But even if this happened, it will

01:06:10.833 --> 01:06:15.166
be news for a certain amount of time
and after that,

01:06:16.333 --> 01:06:17.500
it’s just history.

01:06:33.666 --> 01:06:36.416
Do you feel any different,

01:06:36.416 --> 01:06:41.125
now when you read news of the war,
compared to when it began?

01:06:41.375 --> 01:06:43.375
Yes. I feel really different.

01:06:43.375 --> 01:06:47.708
Super different,
like comparing to what I felt before.

01:06:47.708 --> 01:06:49.500
Because it was so new.

01:06:49.500 --> 01:06:51.791
But now I'm,

01:06:51.791 --> 01:06:56.791
I almost don't feel anything like I'm
not so shocked anymore,

01:06:57.125 --> 01:07:01.416
because, I just saw so many horrible,

01:07:01.416 --> 01:07:05.583
catastrophic stuff, terrorist stuff, like,

01:07:05.583 --> 01:07:07.125
dead bodies,

01:07:07.125 --> 01:07:09.041
ruined buildings,

01:07:09.041 --> 01:07:11.916
and a lot of, a lot of blood,

01:07:11.916 --> 01:07:15.041
that now when I see
pictures like this,

01:07:15.458 --> 01:07:17.833
I don't have some emotions about it.

01:07:17.833 --> 01:07:20.958
It's for me, even scarier
that I don't feel emotions about it

01:07:20.958 --> 01:07:24.291
because I remember how I was crying
just like when I saw that like

01:07:24.291 --> 01:07:30.583
“Oh, they bombed some residential building
and 15 people died and like 4 kids”

01:07:30.583 --> 01:07:33.125
I would start crying
and cannot stop.

01:07:33.125 --> 01:07:36.375
But now when I see I'm
just scrolling it, and that’s all.

01:07:36.375 --> 01:07:39.750
It’s “Oh, next, next”.
It's horrible to say, but, it's true.

01:07:39.750 --> 01:07:42.875
And I'm feeling that
I’m a bit dead inside.

01:07:43.208 --> 01:07:46.500
That I'm not so sensitive
anymore, you know?

01:07:48.833 --> 01:07:52.541
So now when I'm scrolling
Instagram and

01:07:52.541 --> 01:07:59.208
saw all the pictures of the war, I notice
that I become more numb as well.

01:07:59.208 --> 01:08:02.833
It's become just part of my reality.

01:08:03.833 --> 01:08:06.625
It's not horrifying anymore.

01:08:06.625 --> 01:08:08.291
It’s just there.

01:08:08.291 --> 01:08:09.625
It’s just,

01:08:10.500 --> 01:08:13.625
something that’s
happening right now

01:08:14.916 --> 01:08:16.625
Yeah.

01:08:17.500 --> 01:08:20.500
It’s just,

01:08:21.208 --> 01:08:24.416
in a certain point,
I feel less human.

01:08:26.458 --> 01:08:28.291
Because

01:08:28.291 --> 01:08:31.666
I feel like I lost my empathy

01:08:32.791 --> 01:08:35.791
and I lost my sense of

01:08:43.500 --> 01:08:46.541
being like,

01:08:46.541 --> 01:08:49.541
part of the tribe.

01:08:51.083 --> 01:08:53.625
I’m just

01:08:53.625 --> 01:08:55.875
watching through my iPhone

01:08:57.083 --> 01:08:58.416
I have iPhone.

01:08:58.416 --> 01:09:00.333
I have a lot of

01:09:00.333 --> 01:09:02.750
fancy things

01:09:02.750 --> 01:09:05.833
which

01:09:05.833 --> 01:09:08.041
doesn't matter to me anymore.

01:09:08.958 --> 01:09:11.416
Which just doesn't
matter to me anymore.

01:09:11.416 --> 01:09:14.416
It's just.

01:09:15.250 --> 01:09:18.291
Feels like you live in a grey zone.

01:09:19.833 --> 01:09:22.833
You're not able to cry anymore.

01:09:26.166 --> 01:09:28.375
You wake up,

01:09:28.375 --> 01:09:30.875
you’re reaching your phone,

01:09:32.375 --> 01:09:34.458
you look at some horrible pictures,

01:09:34.458 --> 01:09:37.791
you look at some fun pictures.

01:09:37.791 --> 01:09:41.291
People keep living their lives,
doing some stuff.

01:09:42.583 --> 01:09:46.708
It’s just become like
one horrific routine.