Director Alina Gorlova:”It will follow us wherever we go” – Culture

There is still electricity in Kyiv, says Alina Gorlova when this conversation takes place, there is still internet, there is still water, there is still gas and there is still heating. So they, they, film, that is, the director Alina Gorlova and the producer of her film Maksym Nakonechnyi. When not filming, they are distributing food and medicine to people in bunkers. It sounds like they are walking during the interview. “Let’s go,” Gorlova says to someone. They ask her over the phone “Are you there?” and she understands, “How are you?” And replies: “Fine, good, alive.” Laughs briefly, a little bitterly, but confidently.

Alina’s documentary “This Rain Will Never Stop” will be released in German cinemas this week, while the director and her producer stayed in besieged Kyiv. One asks, of course, why they stay and if they are afraid.

Both want to answer, there is a brief confusion, someone calls out in Ukrainian. After all, Alina speaks first. “That’s a really big question. First, personally – my friend said to me: We don’t want to be refugees.” They have chosen, she says, to stand by Ukraine, to develop their country and, above all, to be Ukrainian filmmakers. To further develop the Ukrainian film language.

“Maybe it’s all the same for you, but there is a Ukrainian film history!” she says. And you personally? “I want to show that I’m not afraid. I want to show that there are many people in this city who don’t want to see Russia here at all. We also want to help the others, the civilians and our military.”

“I met many who are experiencing the war for the second time,” says Alina Gorlova

“If we flee now and don’t do as much as we can to stop what is happening right now, there will be no safe place. It will follow us wherever we go,” added Nakonechnyi.

The main character in “This Rain Will Never Stop” is Andriy Suleyman. He is the son of a Ukrainian and a Kurd. His family fled the violence in Syria to eastern Ukraine, where the war is catching up with them again. Andriy decides to work as a volunteer for the Red Cross. He wants to go back to his homeland. The director watches him respectfully. The film is a meditation on war and life, in impressive black and white, not aesthetic, but close to the people.

“There are a lot of lonely and elderly people here,” says Nakonechnyi, not about the film but about the present. About the ones they’re trying to help right now. “I met many who are experiencing the war for the second time because they are internally displaced people. People from the Donbass, from the formerly occupied areas, the so-called DPR and LPR. We also see many people who are experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe. Many people have no contact with their relatives. But they know that some cities are either occupied or surrounded or besieged, and they do not know if their relatives are still alive.”

Meanwhile, American fighter jets are flying over Berlin in the direction of Poland and the Ukrainian border. Even when supersonic jets are flying slowly, they make a frightening noise, a dull, diffuse rumble combined with a whistling sound.

In her film, Gorlova resists the conventions of reportage, but uses proven means of art cinema. Long shots of people gliding past. Alienating electronic music. Pictures of natural details that seem like sculptures from time.

It is clear from the start: This is about something very fundamental and existential. About life, suffering and death. The director does not narrow down her subject more precisely. Which is both a strength and a weakness of the film. He doesn’t allow himself to be exploited, his pictures are like windows through which one looks at our existence as at a foreign world. But they could also mean anything and nothing. Andriy does not become the subject of the camera, but looks at life with him almost in disbelief. Nevertheless, he and his family remain untouchable, as if behind glass.

Now even at war, Gorlova keeps filming. A close friend fell in battle, she says. It’s bad, but it could be worse. In an open letter she recently called for a boycott of all Russian films. “I call on all film festivals, all foundations, all international institutions to block cinema from the Russian Federation. We currently have a large number of films in production, including co-productions. This war has affected our ability to meet our commitments to our partners It is unlikely that our films, which should be released this year, will be released. Instead, Russian cinema will be shown to the world. This cannot be allowed. All Russian cinema must be blocked,” she wrote.

Contact with Russian friends? Too painful, says Gorlova

Has she heard from her Russian friends since the war started? By Russian filmmakers? she hesitates. “I had a few Russian friends. I was also in contact with them until the very last moment. Until the bombing of Kyiv started. I tried to motivate them to protest. Then I understood that it was impossible for them. The moment passed, and it was very painful, every time a message came: “How are you? I hope you’re not dead!” She decided to cut ties. “It’s so surreal to get this news. Because I believe that the inhabitants of a country rule their country…” She breaks off disappointed.

Your film does not formulate any philosophy, does not indulge in the meaningful. He doesn’t rant. He is far too cool in conception and too body-warm in the way he accompanies people. Although kept in black and white and composed, many photographs document life situations without particularly stylizing them. Gorlova does not directly show the war, only its shadow. Selectively its physical consequences. Andriy’s life isn’t a story, so there’s no ending either, closed or open. Instead, everything explodes into the abstract.

Is this why This Rain is an anti-war film? You never really know what that’s supposed to be. Anything that has something to do with war and doesn’t portray it as heroic? If you watch the canonical films about the Vietnam War (“Apocalypse Now”, “Full Metal Jacket” etc.), despite all the differences and complexity, one thing is always clear: this war was hell. The prefix “anti” might fit. But “This Rain” observes in a fascinating way how people go on living in the shadow of a machine of violence.

Garlova and Nakonechnyi have to continue. But there’s one more thing they want to say: “We, who are seeing all this, up close, can definitely say: The people who are participating in this invasion, they want to destroy us. They won’t stop. They will, over and over do it again. It’s evident to us.” Still, they don’t give up, in the end they sound more like they want to comfort the interviewer on the other end of the line. Everything makes sense and everything will be, they say. you have hope They say goodbye in Ukrainian: “Все буде добре – Vse bude dobre. Everything will be fine.”

To strengthen Ukraine and its cinema, Alina Gorlova puts the streaming platform on all western film fans Takflix.com ans Herz, which is also available in English.