Two-time Berlinale Silver Bear winner Małgorzata Szumowska (“Body,” “Mug”) and longtime collaborator Michał Englert have quietly wrapped production on “Bodies (of War),” a documentary feature about the fragility and resilience of lives reshaped by the Ukraine conflict.
The filmmakers, who are currently in post-production on “The Idiot(s),” starring “White Lotus” breakout Aimee Lou Wood and Johnny Flynn, spoke to Variety ahead of Poland’s Millennium Docs Against Gravity festival, where the film premieres in competition on May 8.
“Bodies (of War)” documents the toll of the four-year-old war in Ukraine through the perspectives of an eclectic cast of characters. In Lviv, behind the war’s frontlines, veterans at a rehabilitation center fight to regain both their physical and psychological strength. In Warsaw, a transgender refugee tries to build a new life through dance and art. Last are the members of Open Group, a Ukrainian contemporary art collective that attempts to confront the war through its artistic practice.
Interspersed with archival footage, their stories offer a lyrical meditation on the price paid by millions since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as well as a reflection on what might emerge from the war’s aftermath and “how wounded our societies will stay after this traumatic experience,” says Englert.
Production on “Bodies (of War)” began in Lviv, Ukraine, not long after the Russian invasion, where the filmmakers followed wounded soldiers struggling to rebuild their bodies and lives, revealing what the duo describe as “an unexpected form of heroism.”
But as fighting intensified, and traveling behind the war’s frontline became too dangerous, the filmmakers returned to Warsaw “to find new heroes, new layers, new perspectives to adapt to this story,” says Englert, who is also credited as the film’s cinematographer.
Their search for additional protagonists eventually led them to Dana Vitkovska, a Ukrainian transgender multidisciplinary artist living in Warsaw, whose journey to construct her identity on her own terms sets her at odds with Polish bureaucrats. Meanwhile, members of the Open Group art collective, which represented Poland at the Venice Biennale, attempt to “transmit the trauma of war into art,” according to Englert, even as one of their own decides to stay behind in Ukraine to fight.
At first glance, says Szumowska, it was far from clear whether those narratives would work in harmony with each other. “It was a struggle making this film,” she says. “We weren’t sure about the result until the final moment where we put the puzzle together. Then we saw that it works. It has a kind of strength and power and links to our previous work, through the perspective of the body and the physical aspect of it.”
Premiering at Millennium Docs Against Gravity, the documentary film festival that takes place simultaneously across seven Polish cities from May 7 – 17, has a special significance for the filmmakers, who will debut “Bodies (of War)” in their native Warsaw at one of Europe’s leading showcases of documentary film.
“We’ve been dreaming of having a premiere there,” says Szumowska. “We are very excited. We are hoping this is the beginning of the journey.”