The fighting in Ukraine has greatly intensified since the film was made in 2019. Communal sharing is essential for families to deal with the issues that traumatise them. People need a space to tell their stories. Cosumer society encourages a passivity that needs to be overcome.
Graham Douglas
Lesia Diak continues talking about her film Dad’s Lullaby, now focusing on larger social issues, especially the need for families of war veterans to organize collectively to support each other and not give up hope.
A returning soldier has come from another country – the country of War, where they still have friends and comrades fighting, and like the survivors of an accident they feel guilt for being free. This puts an enormous stress on families who have never experienced the trauma, and don’t understand the veteran’s inability to accept affection, and many couples separate as a result. The filmmaker too compares herself to others who have gone to the front to film, while she has not.
The trauma also raises deep questions on a personal and political level, which communal support can provide a space to share and discuss. The film was made in 2019, before the full-scale Russian invasion, so the losses have grown, and the trauma too.
The filmmaker reflects too on the nature of consumer society, which is driven by international companies some of which are profiting from war, whether in Ukraine or Palestine and Lebanon.
Consumerism that also protects or prevents people from thinking about deeper existential questions.
Serhiy has many questions, he is fearful of the possibility of divorce, and he worries that his kids only need him to buy ice-creams. I saw this as emotional intelligence, but also wondered if this questioning is a symptom of PTSD.
Experiences like these force people to ask themselves existential questions, to see things about the world that were hidden before. And they realise that these questions have no practical answers, which contributes to them suffering depression. It’s very difficult to get out of constantly challenging themselves, but it’s a negative way of thinking – like my kids only want me for things I can buy them. Challenging and self-reflection can help us to grow as people but too much of it is not good, because the person holds themselves back and loses hope.
In the US war veterans have a transition place where people returning from war can go before moving back with their families, and we need to work on this in Ukraine.
You need dignity to be supported even with mental health.
I think it came up at one point that Serhiy’s involvement in the film both helps him to grow and reflect but also distracts him from doing so, it shields him?
This is very difficult stuff! I can only imagine what he is experiencing of course. But I think that people need to both process the pain and grief of the past and at the same time move forward in the present, not to focus only on one process.
It’s like mourning the death of someone – there are stages that need to be gone through. After Serhiy separated from his family he didn’t want to talk, he didn’t pick up the phone for six months, he arrived at a stage of realising something bitter, difficult in his life and then when he went back to war, we were not in contact. But yes, it allowed him to feel he was still a good person, he was working and helping his family financially in Canada.
Are you in touch with his wife?
Yes, Nadiia came to Paris, and we went to a screening for high school children and their teachers in the Normandy for Peace Forum.
The screening was an important experience for her because she learned something about Serhiy’s memories, which he never talked about. They are no longer a couple, but she is helping him to apply for a Canadian visa because she understands his need to see his children. They have grown a lot as individuals, maybe she forgave him. The kids are much older now, they speak fluent English and maybe they will find a better future.
The film deals with the time up to 2019. The large-scale Russian invasion happened afterwards, has that given you a different perspective on the film you made?
In 2019 we had 500,000 veterans, now it’s two million, and almost every family has been touched by the war. People like Serhiy are better understood now, but it’s difficult to be hopeful because society is very divided. There are those who have lost a loved one and they want to speak about the person they lost, they need recognition and support.
In 2022 I made a film called “Wounds”, with women at a rehabilitation centre for people who had lost husbands or sons in 2022 due to Russian aggression, and those 10 days I spent with them completely changed me – I could not sleep after what I had heard.
It was like another reality, it’s difficult to place, but at the same time this energy of anger and pain gives people the strength to fight for their rights. Some are writing poetry; some are activists organizing art workshops for other mothers and widows. There are a lot of people who have become our shield. I don’t know what to say because I don’t feel I am one of them. I make my films and try to reflect, but I feel guilty because my physical and mental health does not allow me to help my country to my full extent. I am afraid I would not last long in the army, but other young female filmmakers are not afraid, and they are there fighting.
It’s very difficult to just preserve your sanity in this reality, and we realised more after the large-scale invasion that we need to be organised in groups, because you can’t grapple alone with these inner questions. I am happy that people are initiating these processes, because there are so many people returning from the war disabled, after amputations or horrible injuries, who are standing up and telling their stories. It’s happening more now than in 2019.
Any more to say?
I was thinking that we live in this consumerist world, which is supposed to entertain us, make us happy, and a lot of people want to turn away from the news. That’s healthy but we should question ourselves more, and discuss these questions with our children to prepare them for the world they are in. It’s incredible what is happening in Palestine, so many journalists and filmmakers have died there already, the voices of brilliant minds are silenced. We need to find ways to be more active in social media and in NGOs and film festivals, to just be honest with ourselves. Of course, it’s very difficult and makes us feel depressed, in these reflections and re-thinking our lives but I believe it is the only way – to constantly challenge ourselves – that the consumerist world we built is not right. There are still so many international companies present in Russia, and they contribute to Russia’s war against Ukraine as they are paying taxes there and the Russian government is turning this money into missiles and drones to be fired at Ukrainian cities and villages, to kill Ukrainians, to destroy the hospitals and infrastructure so that people will face electricity blackouts, not being able to warm milk for their kids in winter.
(Photos provided by interviewee Lesia Diak, copyright holder of Dad’s Lullaby stills, and authorised for publication.)
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