Alisa Sizykh

15.02.22–24.02.22 KYIV

2023,
Video, 3’36’’

"Tell me about the situation, how do you feel?" This question stands at the beginning of this short, noticeably spontaneous documentation of a period that has now become historic. On February 15, 2022, when the invasion by Russian troops was already in the offing, Alisa Sizykh began capturing the mood of her fellow students at the Municipal Academy in Kyiv with her handheld camera. The atmosphere is excited, tense, but most of the students in front of the camera are still trying to appear emphatically relaxed: "Absolutely not scared, "they say twice, and one boy is convinced – even more painfully from today’s perspective – that the Russians will immediately fall in love with Ukrainian cities and girls. One of the young women confesses that a potential breakdown of the railroad system would frighten her, while the filmmaker addresses, among other things, the polarities of life: making art today and the brutal reality of a possible war the next day. From the start of the film until its last shot and the sirens wailing at five in the morning on February 24, no one is yet really willing or able to grasp that these young people’s lives will change, abruptly and forever, on the first day of spring in 2022.