#war documentary

No Other Land (2024)

Laura Knight

Ruby Loftus screwing a Breech-ring

In this February post I promised to tell about two ukranian documentaries, that shed a light on russian warcrimes. Since that, one of the docs, 20 days in Mariupol won the Oscar. Since than russia committed so much more. Yesterday they bombed Odessa, again, with ballistic missiles. The war is still going on. ________________________________________________________

20 days in Mariupol is a first documentary film of Pulitzer Prize-winning ukrainian journalist Mstyslav Chernov. Chernov have been a war photographer since the 2014 year, from the start of this war. He also documented Euromaidan protests. He was wounded couple of times during his work as war correspondent. In the last two years of full-scale war, I saw a lot of his potos, as I am involved in design process of Russian War Crimes exhibitions, that took place in Europe and USA. I saw this photos of dead civilians too many times. As a part of my job, I also designed (and curently also editing) a map of russian war crimes in Ukraine. By editing I mean constantly adding new places on the map (you can see the map on the site of the project).

I should mention, that I still cannot watch 20 days in Mariupol. I could not force myself to watch it in cinema, its too hard. I heard about Mariupol from my dear friend, who spent those 20 days there herself. I saw lots of video in the first month of invasion and they still terrifies me.

And its because of that horror, that I am trying to avoid - you should see it. You don't see films like that from russia, in which they would show you, how "Ukranian Nazis" destroyed Donetsk. Cause it never happened. After ten years of conflict, Donestk (which is the capital of one of the separatists quasi-state) is still there. Although russians claimed that we bombed it every day. And yet, it took them less then a month to turn Mariupol into ashes. And its been documented and even translated in real time, such is a nature of our media era. And yet the world missed it. But we should not forget it.

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The second documentary is Intercepted. The film consist of telephone conversations intercepted in 2022 by the Ukrainian Secret Service between russian soldiers in trenches in Ukraine and their families. It may sound trivial in 2024, but this movie does let you see the most grounding example of 'banality of evil'. I mean, its almost trivial to hear famous Hannah Arendt's quote again and again, especially when you don't live in war-torn country. But Intercepted illustrates it just like it is - you hear wives, mothers, girlfriends of russian soldiers tell them, that it's okay to kill, to steal from dead civilians. Someones wife is okay with the fact, that her husband will rape ukrainian women. It does not count as cheating, even more - she supports it. Another wife asks her lover to take home some fine electronics, or kids clothes for their kid. From the destroyed house of ukrainian family, I mean, and she knows it. While you listen to this hellish dialogs - you can see pictures of destroyed ukrainian cities, burnt homes... but its the voices and words of everyday russian families that make this documentary so bone-chilling. Its inhumane in a very literal sense - they just don't see ukrainians as people.

(I could not find where you can see Intercepted right now, but I will edit this and provide links later.) "20 days in Mariupol" 2023/"Intercepted" 2024

Us, Our Pets and the War (2024)

JR29: Vaiettu rykmentti

(“JR29: A Regiment Forced into Silence”).

Documentary film.

27 April 2025.

Finnish Infantry Regiment 29 was assembled from the Finnish province of Central Ostrobothnia in 1941. The Regiment was led by Lieutenant Colonel Paavo Susitaival under Colonel Kaarlo Heiskanen. The Regiment advanced through the bloody battles in the Eastern Karelia to Petrozavodsk, where it arrived in October 1941, and went on through the trench warfare stage of the Continuation War. The relationship between Colonel Heiskanen and Susitaival was strained: Susitaival was of the opinion that he never received from Heiskanen the appreciation that the Infantry Regiment 29 would have deserved for its achievements.

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Teaser videos (with English subtitles):

Now that the Marokon Kauhu drama documentary is finally ready and waiting for its release, my next project is already in the works: a documentary film about the 1941 Continuation War military campaign of the 29th Infantry Regiment that originated from the area of Central Ostrobothnia. At the moment I’m doing it as remote work from Tampere to Kokkola. The narrator of the story is Arppa Airola, who is better known as a singer-songwriter and actor.

From left: Pauli Poranen, Markku Riipi, Arppa Airola. (Photo by Juho Luomala.)