Six women — Iryna, Liudmyla, Halyna, Tetiana, Olha, and Mefodiivna—share stories of the traumatic experiences of sexual violence and torture they went through during Russian aggression in Ukraine from 2014 to 2023. Each woman is a survivor who shares her story in this psychological portrait, creating a unique document of the crime committed, inspired by a desire to preserve the memory of truth and justice. The women are all members of SEMA UKRAINE, the Ukrainian community of women survivors of sexual gender-based violence and conflict-related sexual violence.
Sema Ukraine | Dr. Denis Mukwege Foundation | IMS | Polish Film Institute
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
I have my own personal experience of what I went through in the occupied Donbas in 2014. After two weeks of filming in the occupied territory of Donetsk region in 2014, I was captured at a checkpoint near Russian-controlled Kramatorsk. I was interrogated, with threats to shoot me if I did not give them the information they wanted. After that, I was raped by a Russian army officer. I survived, got out of captivity and closed the door behind me to the worst part of this experience. Then in 2019, I was invited to the first meeting of women survivors of CRSV in Ukraine. We didn’t know each other, but the next few hours together became this key to a locked door. I felt such a strong closeness, empathy for other women, I felt this power in unity and mutual support between us survivors, and I became a member of this community. It was also the day when our women’s organisation of CRSV survivors, SEMA Ukraine, was born. For several years we were working actively as an organisation, tried to support each other, searched for new survivors, organised various psychological trainings, held meetings, discussions, and tried to reach out to the authorities to get the state to recognise SGBV survivors and provide them with special status. We fought a lot for recognition and justice. There were not a lot of us and no one was particularly interested in us and in these crimes of CRSV. And it was a very long struggle for us to be heard. After the outbreak of a full-scale war, after the de-occupation of part of our territory and hearing the terrible stories of sexual violence against women from there, together with our community of women, we decided to start to work on this documentary. I realise that now is a crucial moment when we have to talk about this on a broader level. There is still stigma, shame and fear surrounding this topic in society, and this is the wall we want to break down. And my personal story is also indicative of how difficult it was to speak, to comprehend, and how I found such important support among the same women, how I found a way out for myself.
ALISA KOVALENKO, director