Mariinka

‘Mariinka’ begins long before the world watched the full-scale invasion. In eastern Ukraine, the film traces several young Ukrainians whose lives have been forever shaped by more than ten years of war and conflict in the Donbas region.

Amidst the war a promising boxing talent turns military paramedic, a girl is smuggling unexpected goods across the frontline to survive, and as in a Greek tragedy, two brothers now fight on opposite sides of the front line – against each other – while their youngest brother lives in safety far from the war with a foster family in the United States. Through letters, video calls and silent meetings, a story unfolds about belonging, national loyalty and the fault lines where political conflicts can trump even the bonds of blood.

Pieter-Jan de Pue has spent nearly a decade staying with this story - not chasing the news cycle, but listening to lives shaped by a war that began long before it filled our headlines and continues as the world’s gaze threatens to drift elsewhere. The result is a cinematic journey, filmed on 16mm, that refuses both distance and simplification, presenting the Russian invasion of Ukraine as lived reality, carried in bodies, relationships and impossible choices.