One of the few documentaries that made it into this year’s Cannes official selection – specifically, into the Directors’ Fortnight – Militantropos [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Go…
scheda film] offers a mosaic of subjectivity: the Greek-Latin neologism of its title refers to the various aspects of human existence in war. Cineuropa talked to directors Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova and Simon Mozgovyi, who are part of the Tabor collective, about how the process of making this film was reflected back at them as Ukrainians during wartime.

Cineuropa: The word “militantropos” encompasses the human condition in wartime, but it’s also referred to as a plural noun. Relating that to your collective work, what was your collaboration like?
Alina Gorlova: We co-founded Tabor just after film school, and we produced each other’s films. During the last 12 years, almost, our collective has been through a lot, whether it’s political events or filmmaking, and in some way, each of our visions has been informed by each other’s. I’d say Militantropos, which was made by three directors and three cinematographers, marks the peak of our collaborative work.

Yelizaveta Smith: I would say that the main thing [within our collective] is trust. I trust these people as authors, and I believe in them as auteurs; I feel safe and supported by them. As Alina said, we have been shaping and informing each other for years, and we really see cinema the same way.

Simon Mozgovyi: Within a collective, you have different perspectives and angles on the same topic, on the same scene you’re editing. As a result of this collaboration, every aspect of our work on the film becomes more powerful and deeper.

Militantropos traces sociological patterns over time, so how did the process of editing change over time?
SM: Yes, and for Ukrainians, you have not only time passing, but also the here and now of war. So, the final edit took about 11 months, but before that, we would be selecting some material to look at already in the first half year of filming. Shooting came before any structure had crystallised, and our idea for this film emerged during the edit. We had a lot of material – like 300 shooting days in total.

YS: Yes, we had about 70 terabytes when we started editing! Then, we understood that we had to have a very precise focus, which was on the process of how people transform in wartime. We started filming at the beginning of the war, when it was very chaotic, so our filming was more observational and from a distance. But as time went by, people adapted, and war started to be a part of our society and our spaces, so we had to get much closer to people.

But you three, being humans and Ukrainians actually living this war, are also militantropos. How did the collective work help you during that time?
AG: I remember we started filming in Kyiv right from the very first hours of the full-scale invasion, and I was on the phone with Liza, who was in central Ukraine at that point, but she also said that she had started to film at the same time. Simon, who was in the army then, also said he would like to film. So, we all started from there, hoping that the act of filming would help us get through all of these events. In that sense, there are definitely strong signs of collective therapy in the making of this film because we were trying to find some meaning.

SM: And when it comes to the militantropos perspective of the filmmakers, I noticed that we also cover one another, not unlike how the fighters on the front line do. When one person says, “Okay, I’m out of editing bullets,” another will say, “I’ll cover you” and take on the editing. That is how we conduct our work not only in terms of editing, but also in terms of filmmaking and filming. I believe that we have become a very good filmmaking unit thanks to this militantropos outlook.