11/03/2026 - Pieter-Jan De Pue spent 10 years following young residents of the Mariinka region in eastern Ukraine in an inspiring and cinematically impressive documentary

Pieter-Jan De Pue presented his new film, Mariinka [+see also:
interview: Pieter-Jan De Pue
film profile], at the opening (and in competition) of the 23rd edition of CPH:DOX. The Flemish director made a name for himself with his first feature film, The Land of the Enlightened [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], winner of the Special Jury Prize for Best Cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival, which already plunged audiences into a war zone, at the heart of the Taliban regime. In this respect, Mariinka is a logical continuation of his cinematic work, both aesthetically (both films were shot in 16mm) and thematically. It was actually a Ukrainian army reservist technician he met on the set of the first film who brought the filmmaker to Ukraine.

Mariinka begins with wide shots of the vast horizons of the Carpathian Mountains. A young woman, immersed in the mountainous landscape, tells us the story of a mother whose two sons leave to fight in the war, on opposite sides. Two enemy brothers. Perhaps we can think of the mother in the story as symbolising Ukraine. The young woman takes part in a folk ceremony, and then suddenly we find her in military fatigues, a soldier in an army medical unit. Natasha is one of the protagonists of Mariinka, which, through its portrait of a place wiped off the world map by Russian bombing, also paints a picture of Ukrainian youth who are living through the daily reality of war in their hearts and flesh.

The story begins in 2016. Already, the conflict is on everyone's mind. For two years, Donbass, and Donetsk in particular, have been at the centre of armed conflict between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian army. This conflict has taken root even within families. The film follows the trajectories of four brothers, four orphans separated by history. The youngest, Daniil, becomes Sacha when he is adopted by a family in Mississippi. We see him grow up on the other side of the world, maintaining a fragile but resilient connection with his brothers. As we watch his body transform and become Americanised, we see him playing war games in the forest or on his console, as if he cannot escape it. While one of his brothers, confined to a wheelchair, struggles with everyday life, the other two fight each other, one on the side of the Russians, the other on the side of the Ukrainian army. The last protagonist of the story, Angela, is an unlikely figure, a smuggler who travels the front line on her bicycle to transport goods as diverse as a bust of Lenin, a racehorse, ammunition and even a baby from one side of the border to the other.

Mariinka is a film about ghosts, about this devastated city, but also about the ‘normal’ adults that its protagonists will never become, whose destinies have been turned upside down by war. Each and every one of them bears the scars, and yet they also carry within them hope, however tenuous, as a driving force. Plunging us into the heart of the fighting, through the meticulous sound design and the power of the images captured, close to its protagonists on the front line, or even in the air via stunning drone footage, Mariinka allows the unexpected to happen, often poetically, while telling us the story of a deadly civil war that repeats itself.

Mariinka was produced by Savage Film (Belgium) and Pieter-Jan De Pue, in co-production with Submarine (Netherlands), Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion (Germany), Dark Riviera (Sweden) and Naoko Films (Belgium). International sales are handled by Films Boutique.

(Translated from French)