Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov is sitting in a brightly lit apartment in Kyiv, wife Veronika by his side, hand cupping his right ear. “What? What? What?” he says, asking Variety to repeat the question. More than two years on the frontline of Ukraine’s war with Russia have provided Sentsov with few chances for levity, but he allows himself a mischievous grin.
After suffering, by his count, “six contusions and two perforations” to his right ear drum, the director has lost a significant portion of his hearing. It may or may not return. Sentsov shrugs.
Many of his Ukrainian comrades, he knows, have suffered far worse fates. It’s a point driven home by the director’s latest film, “Real,” a documentary snapshot of the Ukraine war that world premieres with a special screening at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival . Described as an “accidental” film, the 88-minute feature is entirely comprised of footage Sentsov shot in a trench in Ukraine’s Donbas region after a nearby unit was ambushed by Russian forces.
It is a chilling glimpse of a fleeting moment in a war that has claimed tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians since it began. Reliving that day is still a struggle for the 47-year-old Sentsov, a father of four who expects to return to the front soon. “It’s hard to watch at the beginning, but this is an immersive experience,” he says.
“There is nothing fake in this. It’s raw material.” The director is speaking to Variety on the eve o.
