The documentary Footprints, by Ukrainian filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko, was presented in the press room of the Parliament Chamber in Italy. The booths were all busy. Images that report violence committed by Russian soldiers and the response of women who do not want to be what happened to them.
“I was a victim,” says director Alisa Kovalenko, member of the European Film Academy and the Ukraine Film Academy, at the presentation of the documentary she directed Footprints. “I was imprisoned and tortured for four days” in Donbass in 2014, years before the official aggression of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in 2022.
Irina Dovhan is sitting next to her. She was also raped by the Russians in 2014. She became an activist and is now president of the NGO “Sema” which in Swahili language means “speak out”. The aim of the organization is to support the victims and giving them a safe space where they can explain what happened to them.
“Bosnian and Kosovan women spoke about this issue twenty years after the war,“ says director Kovalenko. “The violence on us began in 2014,” emphasizes Dovhan, “at the time the world did not know what was happening near the border with Russia”.
Testimony
Another testimony is the one of the woman in the documentary. Fifteen minutes of the short film were showed in the press room. The documentary opens up on the image of sunflower fields under a fading sun.
“When I opened the door, I was immediately hit in the face with an assault rifle”. Images of gray fields goes with the voice and the subtitle of the woman. “I ran out into the street, they followed me and they knocked me down. I was on the ground when they started beating me”. The framing changes, there is a sun covered by black clouds. “They pushed me to the point of not wanting to live anymore,” says the middle-aged woman sitting among blades of tall grass. She holds her face in her hands. “Since the beginning I understood that living unhappily would have been like surrendering to the enemy”. The frame shifts to leaves and trees. “They did not kill me, but they broke me and condemned me to unhappiness. For me it was important not to allow them to make me unhappy.” The light shines through green leaves “With this weapon of mine I am able to return their blows.”
She speaks then about the role of the “Sema” NGO she collaborating with: “I try to share it with other women. If they can overcome this, having goals in their lives, this is the best slap in the face of the enemy. The proof of their failure”. On the screen, the woman is arranging purple flowers and green leaves in a sunny day. Her hands are illuminated by the light. “For me, trees are very important,” she concluded.
Speak out and aid
“Give me a pencil I will redraw the world”, it seems that all these women are saying the same thing: “We are not victims, we are survivors,” as the director Kovalenko explains. She was also kidnapped and raped. “You have to thank you survived” told her captor when he released her. Words that sound like a bluff, but, instead, it was reality. Like her, many other women found the courage to speak out thanks to the support of “Sema” organization, which welcomes them as broken little girls, no matter if they are seventy or seventeen years old.
“This film would never have come into being if what happened to me had not happened,” says Alisa Kovalenko in a scratchy voice, ”this is why I felt compelled to document.” The documentary Footprints aims to shares stories giving strength and support to victims. Their stories are an important act to show to the world aspects that are often hidden or untold in the public speeches about the war.
