The Earth Is Blue as an Orange

Military actions have been ongoing in the East of Ukraine for the fifth year now. Many people from the civilian population were injured, lost their homes. But the life goes on.

The title of our film is the quote from the poem of Paul Elluard and the bright example of surrealism in art. The being of civil people in a front-line zone seems quite surreal too. And especially the being of children and teenagers.

The documentary project “The Earth Is Blue as an Orange” is based on the observation of the few people, the family, who live in Krasnohorivka, a small city in the “red zone“ of Donbas, one of the most destroyed after shellings.

Anna is a single mother. She has daughters Mira & Nastya, sons Vlad & Stas, as well as the dog, six cats and the turtle. During the 2014-2015 this family had slept every night in the cellar of their house. The house of their closest neighbours was destroyed by mine. Last year Mira & Nastya’s school was also bombed, it looks ruined now. Moreover, half a year ago Anna, the mother, had two serious neurosurgical operations. Taking into account the fact that the father of children lives in the occupied territory and does not care about children, it is clear that the family is going through some tough times.
But despite all these circumstances, they are really cheerful. All children play different musical instruments. Year ago two sisters have participated in the cinema-camp for children and now they both love cinema and want to be filmmakers. Actually, the whole family became a small “film-production” now: they try to shoot films by themselves. Nastya is the director, Mira is DOP, their mom is trying to learn film editing, and they use their small boys as the actors. Given the fact they use their own experience as material for shootings, it looks quite impressive storyline of our film.
So, what we see in the perspective? Quite a life-affirming story. The war in Ukraine is still going on. But the life in the war zone is still going on too.