A movie made about mothers of our soldiers

A short documentary, named Mommies and featuring mothers of Ukrainian soldiers, is rapidly gaining popularity on the web. The 7.5 minutes film made by the 5th Channel’s reporter Azad Safarov had over 20,000 unique viewers on YouTube in a few days. “It took us two and a half weeks to create it. Search for characters and ways to make a film consumed most of this time, as there was the election to cover, and all the operators and designers were overworked. However, I did not really want to release this short film before the election. I wanted people to take a breath so that they could calmly listen to the mothers. Therefore, we recorded some mothers prior to the election, and others after it. In our opinion, this topic was too tender and delicate to spoil it with the background noise of politics,” Safarov commented for The Day.

In the film, several mothers of those soldiers who are now fighting in the east of the country talk about their sons. They talk about what their children were like when they were just little kids, what terms of endearment their mothers used, how often their sons are calling them. Mothers share with the audience stories of their sons’ childhood years, their tastes, loved ones, and hobbies. They do not know exactly where their children are now serving, and talk about their worries and apprehensions.

Safarov said they found the mothers through the efforts of volunteers and city councils as well as with the help of colleagues. They filmed a few in Zhytomyr and others in Kyiv. “You know, not all of them agreed at once, as some treated us with suspicion at first. They felt awkwardly at becoming film characters. However, as soon as we asked them about childhood years of their sons, the mothers melted and could not restrain their feelings anymore,” the film’s creator added.

The purpose of this video, according to its maker, is to share the burden now born by these mothers and show their pain and anxiety, to prevent them from keeping it all within their minds.

“We need to make more videos, feature-length and short films about our soldiers. There is no need for pathos or excited cheers, we need just to show their stories as they unfold. Out of all the mothers we filmed for Mommies, not a one said: ‘I am all for my son to keep fighting there, he must defend the homeland.’ Showing the mothers’ patriotism was not my goal. They are mothers, they place safety of their children first. Therefore, the short film includes direct quotes of mothers saying they tried to dissuade their sons from going to war, asked them to stay home. The latter failed to obey these requests, but the mothers neither argued nor quarreled with them, they courageously accepted decisions of their children and kept courageously supporting them. They are this way, these heroic mothers. They are beautiful, one can listen to their stories about their children forever. Lots of good quotes have been left behind just because my objectives included not stretching the film too much, keeping it short,” Safarov noted.