PHOTOPHOBIA

In a country martyrized by a horrific war. Sunlight is the most dangerous think for twelve-year-old Niki. Niki, his family, and hundreds of others are taking shelter in a tunnel of Kharkiv’s metro, the last large city before the border with Russia. In this underground ‘home’, Niki meets Vika, who will help him find a shred of that life that the cruelty of war took away from him.

“When we arrived in Ukraine with humanitarian aid in the spring of 2022, and settled into a life alongside the metro refugees, we realized that the eyes of the world would be on the front line. That was why we decided to find something most closely approaching “ordinary life” – said directors Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarčík – and preserve it to the best of our abilities: to find a moment of genuine humanity at a time of devastating horror. We decided to juxtapose the timeless, aimless life lived by Niki and his family with the chilling scenes playing out on ground level, using the format of Super 8mm film footage. We’ve filmed observations of a war-ravaged country that might seem as the distant ideas of a traumatized child – a fever dream from times long past – if only the audience did not know that this was the reality of Ukraine nowadays.”