CHAPTER 4: SHOOT:

Window scene

want to think of a background sitation
maybe with flowers and the carpet

Trying to create a scenery that looks staged a bit messy, a bit just not enough energy to clean up

We hear the sound of western news in the background reporting about the invasion of Ukraine: about the bombing of the seedback in Ukraine, about the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, about the description of cultural heritage. An airplane passes by the window, drawing a white veil behind itself. The protagonist is feeling anchored to the apartment.

Scene describtion:

Voice Over:

My sky a light world -
I realised
is woven out of long ancestral lines fabricating the infinite depth of my sense of belonging.

Memories of her grandmothers apartment again, come into being. This time, we see the details of her windows clearer: taped, no veils on the sky sky - hopefully. The voice of Ukrainian president Zelenksy in the back, giving his daily speech about the war. The camera pans from away from the window into the room, where it lands on a drawing that stands by the table. It’s a selfportrait of the grandmother - still a sketch - unfinished. With wise eyes she look at us and fluffy clouds surrounding her head.

She couldn’t continue painting it anymore. She told me, “I did not idealise Russia as a state, but to become a “mortal enemy” for us was a blow and required rethinking ... The clouds, which in the self-portrait sketch were supposed to symbolize… hint at my thoughts, my worldview, are associative. That's how everything slowed down.”

Now, strength looks through her pixely eyes at me, as we weave oracles within with our screens in skype.

The wise eyes of the portrait morph into pixely eyes of a screen. The daughter, the mother and the grandmother are skyping with each other. Talking about mundane things. As their conversation stops, we come back to the protagonist - closing her laptop. Torn between these experiences, she looks at the sky again for answers.

Grains vs Seeds
Crop vs Grass

I’ve begun to interrogate the past, the present and myself
And I recognised what it means to inherit a history fractured by genocide.
cycles of dysfunction that had plagued us like bad blood.
recognising the ways that trauma can make us the people we shouldn’t have been

She goes to the balcony and plants some there. She puts some in her pocket and returns to the table, creating eyes.

We piece together the Ukrainian history of my mother’s family from fragments. I had no language, a fractured history, a country I have hardly been to. I often feel like an imposter. Those contending with the chaos of wartime and Soviet record-keeping are plagued by fruitless searches, gaps patched only through fiction.
Trying to reclaim my cultural identity, I face a legacy of sorrows and incomplete lives, and must come to terms with the persistence of trauma in a diaspora.

I face the possibility of losing a country before I can know it. I hear an anxious ticking clock for this permeable, still-imagined place.

With these eyes she created, she goes back to the window, standing and looks again through the window, calmer now.

I continue staring,

It gives me hope to think we share the same sky

Sun circling warmth, nurturing me with the infinite blue

When i see it, I think of you
And that you can see the sun too
And even though our roots are not grown in same soils
And we are not together,
We actually are - kind of
We are both underneath the same sky

Sometimes a plane interrupts my vision
with its white veil it draws behind itself.
I follow it,
how It slowly fades,
leaning into its canvas –
dissolving and becoming one.
How many veils might have stroked the sky to paint its surface? How many veils will be missing from the surface of my grandmother's sky?
Cracking skin
Shooting
i feel evaporated
I gasp for the passing of air
That no longer stays contained inside my shell

And so

I contain myself
Shelter myself
Shelter what does not need to be sheltered and
Shelter because going outside and facing normality feels painful
Anything but silence is too atmospheric

As the sky opened, after this long periode of grey…
I finally shooted,
And as I did, it also opened the cultural wounds that weren’t able to see the light before.
Now I am hoping, that it would be just closed again, so my family would be in safety, too.

The protagonist stands up and looks for seeds. She walks through the corridor of her apartment, stepping over a mattress that lies on the floor, a scene which you would usually see in Ukraine.

In the kitchen, between other grains, flour and other staple food she gathers some seeds and brings them back to the table to reclaim them.

↑ Creating references to Ukraine / learning about Ukrainian culture

The Story of the Film Jumps. Through the window of the protagonist's apartment, we look at the blue sky above Rotterdam. Everything is overwhelmingly bright and blue, like when looking into the sun for too long. The blue is stagnating. The scene pans over to the face of the protagonist. She is wearing no blindfold anymore. She is staring into the distance, breaths heavily.

Through the window glasses, my eyes watch into the distance, trying to reflect this mesmerising blue that paints our skies for 14 days.
it stagnates.
No hopes, no dreams, no thoughts,
No hopes, no dreams, no thoughts,
My skin, usually embracing the warmth of its sun, now seeks to hide within four walls - hugging it tight - in safety.
I find it difficult to collect my thoughts.
Time passes senselessly,
sense passes without time.

Moodboard not finished
- will be doing tryouts at home