ORDINARY CITIZEN

Ukraine offers Russian soldiers who surrender captivity as prisoners of war. There they live a much better life than at the front – most importantly, they live. We don't know whether the men here surrendered or were captured. One of them, Andrey, was an electrical engineer. He had never imagined that he would one day become a soldier. He receives mail from the Red Cross in which he reads about his sons: one wants to be a pilot, the other is discovering chess and ballet. When asked about the reasons for the war, he nonchalantly talks about a secret world government that is practising population control, first through the coronavirus pandemic and now by means of war. He estimates that 80% of his fellow prisoners are mentally ill, including himself. He first noticed this when, after months of war, he suddenly found joy in killing.

Hrytsyuk repeatedly confronts the men with the unimaginable suffering that the Russian war has brought to Ukraine. The soldiers assure him that they don't see themselves as occupiers; in Donbas and Luhansk they were welcomed as liberators—how else would you welcome armed men if you wanted to survive? It’s almost impossible to say what is spoken sincerely here and what isn't. It's understandable that the men, with the prospect of returning home to Russia, don't condemn Putin on camera. Caution, self-deception, trauma, defence and suppression mechanisms; all of these become apparent from their words. Some go as far as openly declaring that they would go to war again; others refuse to take part in prisoner exchanges for fear of again being used as cannon fodder. ORDINARY CITIZEN depicts destroyed bodies and souls, true believes, and confused youths. Time and again, we hear that they "somehow" got caught up in this war. Just as war is made up of individual massacres, the hordes of soldiers in this film are broken down into direct encounters with people - and into an almost paralysingly inadequate "somehow."

Text: Tim Abele

Fri 07.11. I 18:30 I KAMMERBÜHNE I original version with English subtitles + simultaneous German translation

Sat 08.11. I 18:00 I GLAD-HOUSE I original version with English subtitles + simultaneous German translation

Квитки / Tickets:
https://www.filmfestivalcottbus.de/de/programm/sektionen/movie/2710.html