We continue with a series of interviews with professional Ukrainian documentarians. This time we talked with Yulia Kochetova and Serhiy Polezhak about advocacy of the Ukrainian voice, aestheticization and focus topics of the war.
And how do we manage to find a balance between objectivity and emotionality in their works, filling themes and their own transformations during these 10 years of war.
Julia Kochetova:
There is no gender in the work of the photographer. Behind my shoulders and next to me are a lot of female colleagues who have made it so that I now face much less sexism than it was in the same 2014. One of them is Lincy Addario.
Julia Kochetova:
As soon as I start to feel stupid hatred, I have to leave the profession.
Julia Kochetova:
You are always, wherever you are, ambassadors of your country. You constantly have to advocate for the Ukrainian voice about what Ukrainian projects should be, Ukrainian photographers, Ukrainian culture. To remove Russians from all public panels, to refuse to be on the same stage, to do it aggressively, to do it creatively, to do it in any way, but you have to carry it with you.
Serhiy Polezhaka:
The photographer is forced to do cruel, unpleasant, difficult to perceive attractive. By framing the photo to the more or less accepted rules of composition, we make it attractive. And inevitably we interfere with the perception of the picture in general. We are forced to do this, because if we show cruelty as it is in general, then it will not be seen.
Julia Kochetova:
I am afraid of the idea that war is men with guns. Showing war through a man with a gun is a very formal approach. If you go into depth and not into quick reflection, then the topic of captivity hurts and interests me the most.
It is completely non-visual, but too important in the social context. It is a story about a sensory experience lived by people waiting from captivity who are in captivity, and it is very difficult to visualize, just like the occupation.
I wish it was a therapeutic story, but it seems to me that it is a retraumatizing story. One of my biggest personal fears is being captured.
Serhiy Polezhaka:
A garden is not only a place, but also a symbol that reflects our attitude to the world. From a garden surrounded by a fence to growing plants in a garden, it becomes an essential space between the personal and the public. How we arrange this space determines our attitude to ourselves, to others, and to nature. This story is about us, our gardens, and the responsibility of how we care for this unique gap between “intimately mine” and “public.”
Grave in the garden, p. Dovhenke, Kharkiv region, October 2023. The mother was able to bury her son, who died from a Russian plane bomb, only in her garden, because the whole village, including the cemetery, is destroyed and unexchanged.
Julia Kochetova:
The face of the war in Ukraine is not personified. At best, it's woven from a thousand faces that become a gray mass, and at worst, it's just maps that the New York Times sews, and you feel like you're inside a football game. That's all.
Julia Kochetova:
There are shots that will forever be with me, even if I really want to forget them: on May 9, 2022, I filmed a mass burial of Russians, about 13 bodies in one pit. At that moment there was an unusually beautiful sunset. And you feel so bad about how beautifully the light falls on these bodies, because I'm actually looking at death.
Julia Kochetova:
The scariest, scariest side of death is that it is universal, equally creepy for everyone. I really wish that the more I filmed death, the more I confronted it, the more I understood life, but so far I have not been able to do so.”
I count people who create visual content as people with extremely high sensitivity. And the most important thing is that our hearts end later than this war is over.
Julia Kochetova
Serhiy Polezhaka:
I really love silence, and deserted, quiet places. There is such an expression: break the silence only when your words are more beautiful than it.
Discussion participants:
Julia Kochetova— Ukrainian photojournalist, documentary filmmaker. Knight of the Order “For Merit” III degree (2022).
Photos from Euromaidanand Crimeapublished The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Huffington Post, The National Geographic, BBC News, Image am Abend. Participant of photo exhibitions in Ukraine, USA, Great Britainand Serbia.
Since 2014, a military photojournalist. Journalistic publications were published in The Hour, Reutersand others. The author of the film “Until Soon”.
With the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, she returned to military photojournalism.
Serhiy Polezhaka— producer and director, founder and executive director of New Cave Media, an immersive storytelling studio. Sergey is also the director of the VR documentary “Aftermath VR: Euromaidan”.
Lina Zelenska— journalist, TV presenter and moderator of the meeting.
We are gratefulWork.uafor supporting and assisting in strengthening Ukrainian voices.
The material was worked on:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Marusya Maruzhenko
Site Manager: Vladislav Kuhar
We continue with a series of interviews with professional Ukrainian documentarians. This time we talked with Yulia Kochetova and Serhiy Polezhak about advocacy of the Ukrainian voice, aestheticization and focus topics of the war.
And how do we manage to find a balance between objectivity and emotionality in their works, filling themes and their own transformations during these 10 years of war.
Julia Kochetova:
There is no gender in the work of the photographer. Behind my shoulders and next to me are a lot of female colleagues who have made it so that I now face much less sexism than it was in the same 2014. One of them is Lincy Addario.
Julia Kochetova:
As soon as I start to feel stupid hatred, I have to leave the profession.
Julia Kochetova:
You are always, wherever you are, ambassadors of your country. You constantly have to advocate for the Ukrainian voice about what Ukrainian projects should be, Ukrainian photographers, Ukrainian culture. To remove Russians from all public panels, to refuse to be on the same stage, to do it aggressively, to do it creatively, to do it in any way, but you have to carry it with you.
Serhiy Polezhaka:
The photographer is forced to do cruel, unpleasant, difficult to perceive attractive. By framing the photo to the more or less accepted rules of composition, we make it attractive. And inevitably we interfere with the perception of the picture in general. We are forced to do this, because if we show cruelty as it is in general, then it will not be seen.
Julia Kochetova:
I am afraid of the idea that war is men with guns. Showing war through a man with a gun is a very formal approach. If you go into depth and not into quick reflection, then the topic of captivity hurts and interests me the most.
It is completely non-visual, but too important in the social context. It is a story about a sensory experience lived by people waiting from captivity who are in captivity, and it is very difficult to visualize, just like the occupation.
I wish it was a therapeutic story, but it seems to me that it is a retraumatizing story. One of my biggest personal fears is being captured.
Serhiy Polezhaka:
A garden is not only a place, but also a symbol that reflects our attitude to the world. From a garden surrounded by a fence to growing plants in a garden, it becomes an essential space between the personal and the public. How we arrange this space determines our attitude to ourselves, to others, and to nature. This story is about us, our gardens, and the responsibility of how we care for this unique gap between “intimately mine” and “public.”
Grave in the garden, p. Dovhenke, Kharkiv region, October 2023. The mother was able to bury her son, who died from a Russian plane bomb, only in her garden, because the whole village, including the cemetery, is destroyed and unexchanged.
Julia Kochetova:
The face of the war in Ukraine is not personified. At best, it's woven from a thousand faces that become a gray mass, and at worst, it's just maps that the New York Times sews, and you feel like you're inside a football game. That's all.
Julia Kochetova:
There are shots that will forever be with me, even if I really want to forget them: on May 9, 2022, I filmed a mass burial of Russians, about 13 bodies in one pit. At that moment there was an unusually beautiful sunset. And you feel so bad about how beautifully the light falls on these bodies, because I'm actually looking at death.
Julia Kochetova:
The scariest, scariest side of death is that it is universal, equally creepy for everyone. I really wish that the more I filmed death, the more I confronted it, the more I understood life, but so far I have not been able to do so.”
I count people who create visual content as people with extremely high sensitivity. And the most important thing is that our hearts end later than this war is over.
Julia Kochetova
Serhiy Polezhaka:
I really love silence, and deserted, quiet places. There is such an expression: break the silence only when your words are more beautiful than it.
Discussion participants:
Julia Kochetova— Ukrainian photojournalist, documentary filmmaker. Knight of the Order “For Merit” III degree (2022).
Photos from Euromaidanand Crimeapublished The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Huffington Post, The National Geographic, BBC News, Image am Abend. Participant of photo exhibitions in Ukraine, USA, Great Britainand Serbia.
Since 2014, a military photojournalist. Journalistic publications were published in The Hour, Reutersand others. The author of the film “Until Soon”.
With the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, she returned to military photojournalism.
Serhiy Polezhaka— producer and director, founder and executive director of New Cave Media, an immersive storytelling studio. Sergey is also the director of the VR documentary “Aftermath VR: Euromaidan”.
Lina Zelenska— journalist, TV presenter and moderator of the meeting.
We are gratefulWork.uafor supporting and assisting in strengthening Ukrainian voices.
The material was worked on:
Researcher of the topic, author of the text: Marusya Maruzhenko
Site Manager: Vladislav Kuhar
UAPP is an independent association of professional Ukrainian photographers, designed to protect their interests, support, develop and promote Ukrainian photography as an important element of national culture.
UAPP's activities span educational, social, research and cultural initiatives, as well as book publishing.
UAPP represents Ukrainian professional photography in the international photographic community and is an official member of the Federation of European Photographers (FEP) — an international organization representing more than 50,000 professional photographers in Europe and other countries around the world.
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