The Illusion of a Quiet Night

A man rolls back the sliding roof of an observatory. Light pours in. He looks at the sky, acknowledges the presence of the sun. But very quickly, night falls over the film. Dogs roam beneath the neon lights of a petrol station. Car headlights sweep the road. At the station, loved ones say their farewells under the harsh lights illuminating the platforms. Passengers – a woman, a child, a man in military uniform – look us straight in the eyes through the window before their train departs. A woman about to give birth arrives at the maternity ward. A unit at
the front prepares its meal. People dance in a club while others take shelter from air raids. They escape and they confront. They help and protect one another. Filmed one night in July 2025 by forty filmmakers and hundreds of citizens, The Illusion of a Quiet Night creates a broad collective portrait of Ukrainians facing the invasion war they did not ask for. Wide shots that give a sense of overview and distance, subjective cameras with an intimate gaze, sometimes unsure of what to capture, converse in a choral montage that conveys the coexistence of the whole. Between fear and exhaustion, moments of joy and scenes of the ordinary day to day, we watch as life goes on in spite of everything, witnessing the resilience
of a nation gripped by uncertainty, before the sun rises again.

Mourad-Anis Moussa

The Illusion of a Quiet Night, 2026
Kharkiv, capitale de la photo rebelle, 2024 
A Picture to Remember, 2023
The Land of Aliens, 2023
Tiny Summer Trilogy, 2023
The Flood that No One Saw, 2019 
Hives of my Heart, 2019