Nadiya is a kind and fair person, and my task was to show her as such — against the darkness surrounding her from this brutal war

Maxim Lytvynov, director of the film “Mariupol. Unlost Hope”

The idea for the film came from Tala Prystaetska and Volodymyr Borodyansky. They were impressed by the well-known diaries of Mariupol journalist Nadiya Sukhorukova in the besieged city. They invited me to direct the film. I already had several documentary film ideas in development, but I thought that this film is important and necessary now. It is an opportunity to do something for people who stayed in Mariupol. If the Russian troops retreated in the Kyiv region and we saw now what was happening there, the terrible discoveries of Mariupol are still ahead. This film will become even more relevant. 

Nadiya Sukhorukova wrote her diaries being at occupied territories, being in danger. She managed not to forget all the details and fix them. What impresses me most is her feat. Nadiya is a kind and fair person, and my task was to show her as such — against the darkness surrounding her from this brutal war.

The film aims primarily for Western audiences, because people there don’t truly understand the specifics, causes and consequences of this war.

The film has three main characters, three mothers with different fates. Through the prism of their stories we show the destiny of Mariupol. 

Nadiya Sukhorukova has a son and came to him to Chernomorsk, leaving the occupied territory. 

Ksenia lost her son, she has a very hard to tell story. 

Episodes with these two personages have already been filmed. 

The third main character is a woman who gave birth in a Mariupol maternity hospital that was bombed. 

I do not think we will limit ourselves to these stories. But in the center, as I see it, a portrait of a mother at war will be. We will collect it from stories of many Ukrainian women. 

However, the film is still in the development stage and we do not yet know what it will be.

The film crew faces the war on the first day of shooting, in the Black Sea, where they arrive  to interview Nadiya.

After the first night we woke up early in the morning from the explosion, it was close, about 100 meters.

Glass shook, windows in the next house fell. Our apartment was near a port, and a missile was without any air alarm. We understood that the film will be a fighting one.