Daryna Mamaisur
Belgium, Ukraine, Portugal, Hungary | 2023 | 17 min
World premiere
Languages : Ukrainian, English
Subtitles : English, French
While studying in Bruxelles, Daryna Mamaisur is caught up in the conflict invasion of her country. She questions the way in which to speak about it, at a distance, while cinema seems the “least appropriate” means.
It is springtime and the hazel trees are in bloom. In Brussels. In Kyiv. Despite the sirens and plumes of smoke that darken the sky. While studying documentary filmmaking in the Belgian capital, Daryna Mamaisur is caught up in the invasion of her country. She wonders how to talk about it, from afar, when film seems like "the least appropriate means to evoke the immediate danger faced by [her] loved ones." Her film is born from this quandary, and articulates two situations: the director begins to take singing and diction lessons, a way for her to embody language in order to bring out the words that will exorcise her inner wounds. At the same time, she sets up an audio and video exchange with one of her friends who is still in Ukraine, and who prefers to speak about bird song, the rain falling on Kyiv in May or life with her partner, rather than the roar of bombs. Weaving together voices and sounds that focus on the fragility of a banal and reassuring everyday life, I Stumble Every Time I Hear From Kyiv speaks implicitly yet powerfully about the experience of war.
Emmanuel Chicon
