Story of Olena from Kharkiv

“We only plan for tomorrow and today, we are afraid to think about the future.” The story of Olena and her daughter Polina

On February 24, 2022, Olena woke up in the morning and, as usual, opened the news feed on her smartphone. She was surprised to read a message that war had broken out. She looked out one window and saw nothing out of the ordinary, but on the other hand, dozens of families were already bustling around the yard between the high-rise buildings, loading their suitcases into cars and leaving one by one.
As a deaf person, it was unclear to her how threatening the situation in her native Kharkiv was at that time, because she had not heard any explosions or shelling. There was no reliable information in sign language, and her young daughter Polina was not yet proficient enough in sign language to translate the television news.
To learn how Olena and Polina got out of the shelling and where they found shelter, watch the video here.

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Credits

Concept and Direction – Carina Spreitzer
Production – Austausch e.V. | dim filmhouse | Daria Lukashenko
Lead production dimfilmhouse – Eric Holland
Lead production Austausch e.V. – Nataliia Zviagintseva
Camera and Sound Germany – Andrej Matalyha
Camera and Sound Ukraine – Tetiana Dorodnitsyna
Postproduction Coordination – Carina Spreitzer
Cut – Anastasiia Lukova
Colour Correction and Grading – Oleksandr Shuklin
Sounddesign and Master – Marcos Leiro
Music – Marcos Leiro
Subtitles – Nataliia Zviagintseva | Carina Spreitzer
Sign language – Iryna Ternova
Dubbing to Ukrainian – Natalka Sopit and Kyrylo Bondarenko
Set-Runner Germany – Nikita Znak
Set-Runner Ukraine – Borys Viktiuk

This video was produced within the project “Barrier-free Safety for People with Disabilities”, which is the part of INKuLtur-Programme implemented by Austausch e.V. together with Eastern Partnership countries funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.