WIRA’S WAR
NOMINATED FOR THE 2024 GRIMME AWARD
Two premature babies, twins Diana and Sophia, lie in the intensive care unit of Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Lviv with severe pneumonia. Days and weeks in stuffy bomb shelters have eaten away at their lungs. Anesthesiologist Wira Primakova takes the X-rays from the light box and shakes her head, “My God this is terrible.”
During breaks, Wira struggles to call her own children. But each phone call increases the three sons’ longing for their mother. The husband is fighting on the front lines, near Mariupol. “Maybe he won’t come back,” she says. So pass the first weeks of the war. Again and again, seriously wounded children come to Wira’s hospital. Wira fights for the lives of her young patients; as soon as they are stabilized, they are evacuated to other European countries.
But the war remains, and as the second winter of war sets in, Lviv is once again covered in snow and rocket attacks bring the power grid down, Wira finds herself stretched to her limits. “Since February 24, everything is different,” she says at the end of the film. “The feeling of happiness and joy of life has completely disappeared. On the outside, I smile, I’m cheerful. But I no longer feel any joy.”
Carl Gierstorfer, author of the award-winning documentary series “Charité Intensive: Staion 43,” looks at the war in Ukraine through the eyes of a pediatrician. The result is the diary of a doctor and mother who, like so many women, is fighting her own war.
Once again, a film has been made that is so moving precisely because the director lets the images speak for themselves, without music, without a narrative voice, without commentary. The viewer is allowed to make up his own mind in the best sense of the word. … Wira’s War is a film for those whose heads are throbbing with horror and senselessness.
TIME
Carl Gierstorfer’s new documentary does without commentary and also without music – an even greater plus. In general, he does without anything that could distract from the everyday life of the clinic staff and the fates of the children and their families.
epd Medien
The Okhmatdyt Clinic in Lviv is home to the youngest of those whom Putin wants to destroy – because they are Ukrainians. Director Carl Gierstorfer tells about this in his film “Ukraine: War Diary of a Pediatrician”. He does it discreetly. He stays close to the people, to Wira Primakova, her family, the children and their mothers in the hospital, refrains from “spectacular” images and explains without any commentary of his own what this war means and what is sometimes lost in the debate about arms deliveries: terror against civilians, terror against every single person, terror against an entire people.
FAZ
A film by Carl GierstorferEditor Ronald Rist
DoP & Sound Carl Gierstorfer
Producer Nele Huff
Drone Sven Klöpper
Translation
Oleksandra Nikolaieva, Oleksandr Popsuyenko
Drone Danyil Bulanenko
Grading Knut Schmitz
Mix & Layback
Jochen Voerste, Stani Milkowski
Line Producer Ko Miklik
Line Producer rbb Paul Thimm
Commissioning Editor Dagmar Mielke (rbb/arte), Ute Beutler (rbb)
Executive Producer Antje Boehmert
A Production by DOCDAYS Productions for rbb in association with arte
Length: 59 Min
Release Date: 2023
NOMINATED FOR THE 2024 GRIMME AWARD
Two premature babies, twins Diana and Sophia, lie in the intensive care unit of Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Lviv with severe pneumonia. Days and weeks in stuffy bomb shelters have eaten away at their lungs. Anesthesiologist Wira Primakova takes the X-rays from the light box and shakes her head, “My God this is terrible.”
During breaks, Wira struggles to call her own children. But each phone call increases the three sons’ longing for their mother. The husband is fighting on the front lines, near Mariupol. “Maybe he won’t come back,” she says. So pass the first weeks of the war. Again and again, seriously wounded children come to Wira’s hospital. Wira fights for the lives of her young patients; as soon as they are stabilized, they are evacuated to other European countries.
But the war remains, and as the second winter of war sets in, Lviv is once again covered in snow and rocket attacks bring the power grid down, Wira finds herself stretched to her limits. “Since February 24, everything is different,” she says at the end of the film. “The feeling of happiness and joy of life has completely disappeared. On the outside, I smile, I’m cheerful. But I no longer feel any joy.”
Carl Gierstorfer, author of the award-winning documentary series “Charité Intensive: Staion 43,” looks at the war in Ukraine through the eyes of a pediatrician. The result is the diary of a doctor and mother who, like so many women, is fighting her own war.
A film by Carl GierstorferEditor Ronald Rist
DoP & Sound Carl Gierstorfer
Producer Nele Huff
Drone Sven Klöpper
Translation
Oleksandra Nikolaieva, Oleksandr Popsuyenko
Drone Danyil Bulanenko
Grading Knut Schmitz
Mix & Layback
Jochen Voerste, Stani Milkowski
Line Producer Ko Miklik
Line Producer rbb Paul Thimm
Commissioning Editor Dagmar Mielke (rbb/arte), Ute Beutler (rbb)
Executive Producer Antje Boehmert
A Production by DOCDAYS Productions for rbb in association with arte
Length: 59 Min
Release Date: 2023