A Poem for Little People

Director Notes – Ivan Sautkin

This film is the first immersion into the new reality brought by Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. I was struck by the people who chose for themselves an active role, instead of the role of victim, despite their weakness. It seemed to me an apt metaphor.

This film does not have the usual images of war such as explosions, wounded, dead bodies and soldiers. There are deliberately no children. I set myself the goal of making the film acceptable to a very wide audience.

This is a difficult task because for me, war is, first and foremost, a great tragedy.

I was one of the volunteer team. I helped evacuate people from dangerous cities and villages and filmed at the same time as this work. Under such circumstances, it is not possible to work with a film crew. Therefore, I had to reduce the amount of equipment to one bag and performed the functions of director, cinematographer, sound guy and administrator myself.

There is a scene in the film in which Taisiya (one of the protagonists) reads a poem addressed to the mothers of the occupiers. She is touched by a phone call from her son Roman, who is fighting at the front. That day was his birthday. Roman’s body was recently brought to his native Sedniv for burial.

Anton and his friends continue to work in Donbas. They have scaled up their initiative and are now developing not one, but three areas of activity. They have set up a shelter for children from the frontline zone where they study, are engaged in resettling large families to safe parts of Ukraine, and are engaged in evacuating civilians in the frontline zone.

I consider the scene with the evacuation of a woman with a big dog and a sick brother from Bakhmut to be the climax. This scene shows the value of home. This woman’s world is very dangerous and uncomfortable. But it is a world that she created herself. This is understandable for her. She loves it. In this scene, her world collapses and we feel the pain.

Audiences from around the world have warmly received this film. I hope you will enjoy it too. Enjoy watching!