“A widow who cares for stray cats, a boy who loves the ocean, a thinker marked by life … Eva Neymann (Music of Songs, The Home With a Turret) reveals the inhabitants of Odesa with gentleness and care, looking for out what they dream of when the conflict has destroyed all certainty.” Thus reads a synopsis for the filmmaker’s new documentary When Lightning Flashes Over the Sea, which world premieres within the Discussion board sidebar of the seventy fifth version of the Berlin Movie Competition and places a highlight on how Russia’s conflict in opposition to Ukraine impacts individuals.
Neymann returned to war-torn Odesa, encountering each acquainted and new faces. “The movie captures resilient reminiscences, desires, and hopes, revealing humanity’s seek for which means amidst the horrors of conflict,” the synopsis for the Blue Monticola Movie co-production with Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg highlights.
The excerpt from the movie offers a really feel for the poetic journey it takes viewers on as Neymann portrays individuals and their desires amid mild and darkness.
“At first of the conflict, I used to be in Ukraine, so I skilled the primary shock along with all of the individuals there,” Neymann informed THR. “And I made a decision without delay to make this doc of time and place. It was necessary for me. And I believe it is crucial for these individuals.”
Initially, she considered a title together with the phrase “desires” as a result of “it was necessary to me to doc individuals’s desires,” the filmmaker shared. “Particularly in exhausting occasions, to maintain your self going, you must hold the flexibility to dream and see one thing besides the so-called actuality as a result of in any other case you’re simply the product of the circumstances.”
Then she met a teen featured within the movie, and he or she had a title. “As quickly as I met a boy who made needs and informed me that he was completely safe (within the notion) that each one our needs will come true when lightning flashes over the ocean, I assumed that’s it,” the filmmaker defined.
The documentary reveals individuals with a spirit of resilience and give attention to happening with their lives. “After all, life goes on, and also you see younger women taking selfies and ladies wanting very good,” Neymann mentioned. “And the eating places are open. There are concert events within the metropolis, and so forth. It’s a very, very unusual state.” Explosions occur often, in fact. “It’s so horrible. I’ve skilled it fairly a couple of occasions,” she added. “However after a few hours, perhaps quicker, you simply neglect it. It’s attainable to get used to it in a roundabout way to make life proceed.”
Concluded Neymann: “We now have to proceed to reside to even have pleasure. Hatred is just not, cannot be the principle drive in life.”
Watch the excerpt from When Lightning Flashes Over the Sea beneath.