EP. 16: How to be a soldier, a mother and a filmmaker with Alisa Kovalenko

00:00:05: Luzia Tschirky: Welcome to the podcast “Yak ty? Ukraine Live”. “Yak ty?” means “how are you?” in Ukrainian. My name is Luzia Tschirky. I'm your host, a former correspondent, now a book author and a freelance journalist. The aim of this podcast is as always to give Ukrainians the opportunity to speak about their very personal experience of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Today's guest on the show is Alisa Kovalenko. Alisa is an award-winning Ukrainian documentary filmmaker. Her latest film, “My Dear Théo”, offers an extraordinary perspective on life during war through the eyes of a soldier and of a mother, separated from her child. It's Alisa's own story. In 2022, after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Alisa enlisted in the Ukrainian army while her four-year-old son Théo was evacuated to France. She joined a volunteer battalion and brought her camera with her. Today, we'll speak with Alisa about how this film came to life and what it means to be both a parent and a soldier. Alisa, first of all, thank you so much for your deeply moving film, “My Dear Théo”. And second, thank you for being here. It's an honor to have you on the podcast.

00:01:18: Thank you too.

00:01:19: As always, I start this podcast with the question, Yak ty saras? How are you right now?

00:01:25:   Yeah, it's a question which we are always joking about, like to say I'm fine, which is not true. But at the same time to explain how we are, it's so complex. And we are trying to be fine. And sometimes we have a feeling that we have to be fine because we just have to continue our resistance to all this stress around and so I'm trying to be fine.

00:02:02: In 2022, as Russia launched its full-scale invasion, you enlisted in the Ukrainian army. You decided to join the army as a soldier because you made a promise to yourself several years before. Can you tell us about this promise to sign up for the army?

00:02:18: It's a long story. I will try to make it shorter. Actually, it all started during the Maidan revolution. I was still a student of film school in Kyiv and we went to Maidan and not just as filmmakers and we felt that it's a part of our story and we wanted to be also active participants of all events during revolution. But at the same time, you have this inner dilemma. This time you will film how people build barricades or you will build barricades. You film as people are throwing Molotov cocktails or you will throw Molotov cocktails. And this was the beginning of my inner dilemma which started to grow. And after the annexation of Crimea and after the beginning of Russian aggression in Donbas, I felt it even deeper. And I went to Donbas in spring 2014, and I tried to film, tried to understand what's happening there, and after I was captive, interrogated by a Russian officer, I survived captivity and violence, and after I went to the frontline to film Ukrainian volunteer fighters, which just a month before were teachers, students, IT specialists. So they were like just simple people who didn't have any military education, but they started to learn how to make war, how to defend our country. And I started to film this volunteer battalion and this inner dilemma started to grow because I was also thinking about what you can do with your camera. And if maybe there is something more you can do. And I was suffering from all these doubts inside me. And it was a time when I made a promise to myself that if this war will grow, if it will become a full-scale invasion, then I will defend my country with a gun. And that's what happened at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Actually, it was, yeah, a crazy coincidence that I took a train from Kyiv to Donbas on the 23rd of February. So I arrived on the first day of the full-scale invasion. I was already in Donbas. I was supposed to film the last scenes for my previous documentary about teenagers from Donbas. And I had this feeling inside me that I cannot film anymore. I felt absolutely powerless. And a camera was a ridiculous instrument in your hands. Like, what can you do now? Like, does it make sense to film if maybe tomorrow your country can be occupied? And that was kind of like a logical decision. Of course, I also had this strong feeling like a memory of my promise, but it was also so natural that I just didn't feel any more myself as a filmmaker. So I just helped with evacuation of some of my characters, teenagers, and I went to say goodbye to my son and I joined the volunteer unit.

00:05:59: You’ve described feeling helpless at the start of the full-scale invasion, and in My Dear Théo, you speak about the guilt toward your son even asking if he could forgive you. Do you think that for a parent, guilt is inevitable, no matter whether they choose to stay and fight or evacuate with their child?

00:06:21: There are so many different feelings of guilt. There is one feeling of guilt because you have to leave your child. Another feeling of guilt, even what I have now, that I'm not fighting on the front line. And I think we all have a different spectrum of feeling of guilt, that we are not doing enough. And of course, during my time on the front line, I had this feeling of guilt already, like even I didn't know if I will die, but I felt already guilty in case I will die, that my son will have to grow up without a mother. And it's like feelings that if you will die, you will die twice, because you will die, first you will die for yourself, and this I didn't care so much, but second you will die for your child. And this made me unbearably sad and it was this so painful feeling that also was my motivation to write letters and to film something, at least for family archives. But I also, I had this privileged position, I mean, not like many of my friends, who also decided to go to the front line. I have a French partner, a French husband, the father of Theo. And my parents were helping me a lot with my son Theo. So I knew that he will be safe and I knew that there will be people who can take care of him. That's why maybe it made this decision a little bit easier.

00:08:10: Luzia Tschirky: You just mentioned that you started filming with the idea for filming just for your family, so for private purpose. And when actually did it come to your mind to make a documentary out of your service in the army?

00:08:22:   It was after I came back from the front line. During my time on the front line, sometimes I even forced myself to film a little bit. And I didn't believe that after I came back that... Not that I believe, I even didn't try to look to watch these materials. It happened, it was just a coincidence. My good friend and colleague, filmmaker Marina Stepanska, Just six months ago she started to make a film about filmmakers at war. It's like a multi-character story about different people from the film industry, producers, cinematographers, directors, many of which went to fight. And I was a part of, one of the characters of her film and she came to film a little bit when I was on the front line and she just wanted to watch some of my footage, like to understand what maybe she can use for her film. And she came to my home and we watched together. And I told her, no Marina, there is nothing interesting, it's super boring materials, it's like just leaves, trees, insects in the trenches, portraits of my comrades. It's like there is nothing you can use for your film. But after we've watched, we go through my materials, we realize that there is something unique in the materials and it's also this unique perspective. Because I didn't film myself as a director there, I filmed like this very simple but very unique perspective of a soldier who were just sitting in the trench for hours, days and nights. And it was much more about this true life on the front line, this routine and boring as hell. Often we don't see this side of the front line. Usually we see a lot of actions. We see lots of small videos on YouTube or social media and bam, bam, boom, boom, boom. But actually we don't see this routine hard working life when you are sitting in this hall and just waiting for hours, waiting and waiting and waiting. And after a bomb falls on your head and you're dead. And there is nothing like this kind of heroic like in a classical way as we see heroic battles. It's so kind of routine, even death becoming so routine. And I wanted to show these other sides of our fights, the other side of the front line. That's how I started to think after we watched it together with my colleague. My materials, maybe I should try to think how I can transform this experience and these fragments what I managed to film on the front line and combine them also with letters I wrote to Théo and how we can talk about this experience in a different way. Not in this classical way as we usually watch films about war. And I started slowly to just to think. But actually until the last moment, until we really started to edit together with my good friend and great editor, Kasia Bonetska, I didn't believe that we would manage to transform all of this into film. Because my materials are so fragmented. Sometimes it was like one minute, just a bird on the tree. Sometimes it was like two minutes my comrades eating some potatoes and so it was like small small small fragments. Yeah, I didn't believe that we will manage to transform it into a film and it was a kind of miracle that it happened.

00:12:40: You mentioned you didn’t plan to turn the footage into a film from the start. As someone who’s worked as a reporter, I remember my own frustration of wishing I’d captured something differently. When editing My Dear Théo, did you ever feel that way — that you missed something or wished you had filmed it another way?

00:13:09: I was especially angry that I didn't film enough my comrades, especially those who died. And with this I was extremely angry at myself. only... This... The rest I remembered quite well my feeling in my inner protest. I had this inner protest against myself as a filmmaker. That's why it was always a challenge to take a camera and to film, because I kind of cancelled myself as a director. And that's why I kind of found this excuse for myself, but there was no excuse for missing materials of my comrades who died. And this made me incredibly sad.

00:14:01: I can not imagine Alisa, how hard it was to edit the film, knowing some of your brothers in arms are no longer here with us. When we talk more about the structure of your film. My Dear Théo is structured as a personal letter to your son. Why did you choose such an intimate format for the documentary?

00:14:25: First, I started to combine letters together because sometimes I wrote some very short text, sometimes it was very long, and I just decided to combine all together and to see like the old text. And after, my comrades started to die one after another, and they had the children the same age as Théo, and I started to think about this film more and more as a bridge of memory between parents who want to fight and children. And when we watched together with Kaisa, with my editor, materials, and we read my letters, it was like 20 pages around, we realized that these letters, this is the fundament for like the whole structure of the film. Because what was missing in the video, it was like this dramaturgy, because it was like small, small, small, small fragments, some small things. But the real dramaturgy was in the letters, because actually so often on front line, like camera cannot capture like all your emotions, all what's happening in your mind, what you are afraid about, what you're thinking about, about your dreams, and about all of these kind of existential things. And this is what was in these letters. So we realized that they can become our main storyline and main dramaturgical arc. And that's like we started to think what can go together with this letter and what can go together with this letter. And this was a kind of like starting point of our editing.

00:16:30: I imagine that you discussed the process also with your partner. Was that difficult for you together, you know, like to decide that you're going to publish this very intimate like portrait also of your family in general?

00:16:44: I think for Stefan it was also important. It was something which was our common memory. You know, after a full-scale invasion we lost this kind of something intimate, something personal that you're kind of protecting. The line between something common and something personal started to disappear. We cannot talk. We cannot close ourselves in our pain and all the testimonies and all of our memories, it can become a document of this war. And I think that for Stefan it was something similar as for me, because you don't feel that this story is only your story. It's becoming something universal and… When I was editing, I felt that I could talk and I could become a voice of others. And I can talk about this experience, but it's not only my experience. That I can talk about all other my brothers in arms who had the same feelings and who also had children and who were thinking in the same way that what will happen with the memory if we will disappear and we talk a lot with Stefan about this and he never actually never say something against because we are living in this big bitter sea of pain and we cannot isolate ourselves and we cannot say this is my pain I will like I will I will hide it so deep so I cannot talk about this our pain becoming becoming testimony as well.

00:18:33: The soldiers in your unit were almost all men. Only a few women appeared briefly in the footage. Many of your comrades, brothers in arms, as you just mentioned, are also fathers. What would you say? Have you ever felt that either from your internal perspective as being a female soldier, a mother, or from the way you were treated from the outside, was there a difference between you being a mother and them being fathers? Or would you say, there was no difference?

00:19:06: I was in a unique unit, so it was probably different than maybe many other units because we are all volunteers and because we all knew why we are there exactly. And for many of my brothers in arms, was the same thing, especially for those who had children, that we are fighting for future of our children. And we are fighting for freedom to decide about this future. And actually, we had two other women in our unit. They didn't have children. So I talk more maybe about these reflections with men. But also, there were not so much women because I was in infantry unit. And it's like the most dirty job. I joined this unit because I knew commander from 2014 when I filmed on the front line in Donbas. And I didn't care what I will do. I will be drone operator or infantry. Okay, then infantry. So that's why we didn't have so much women because infantry is hardcore. But also, but even in our unique unit, there are still stereotypes. You know, if you are a man, you are already a soldier. Whatever, you have five children, you are weak, you are not healthy, you are fat, you are too thin, you are already a soldier-fighter. But if you are a woman, you have to prove that you are fighter. And this was always, of course. There are some soldiers even from other units because we are always together with some other army units. They will say, why are you here? Why are you not with your son? Why are you not with your family? Why are you not in France? But why are you not with your family? You have three children. You also can be not here. You can go to your children. because, you know, men in Ukraine, they're not, they can't be mobilized if you have three children. And, but you know, after some time all these questions disappearing. And, but it was a first period of time it was not easy in a way that you have to prove that you are equal, like equally, you can do equally job on the front line the same as a man. But after you prove you becoming like a part of your unit, like equal part. But of course I had lots of questions from Western audience about this after when I started to make this film. Even my producer, Kaisa, she was always saying, yeah, but we have to explain people because people will think, my God, she's a mother and she went to frontline to fight. people will like, will be super disappointed. And it's this thing like made me very sad because like it's it's not that your mother you become not less like that you cannot go to fight on the front line and when you are men and your father you can't so where is equality in this question so it was not easy to in the film to find the right way to explain these things that people won't have these questions. But I think it's impossible because we still have all these patriarchal stereotypes in our societies. On different levels in Ukraine, one level maybe in France and Great Britain, it's different, but we still have it everywhere.

00:23:03: In what way would you say that being a parent gave you a different perspective on the war and on being a soldier? And would you say were there situations where it actually gave you strength to carry on your duty while being on the front lines?

00:23:21: Yes, there are two sides of this. One side I already mentioned a bit because you realize that you will not just die for yourself, you will not just disappear and like this I could deal with it actually somehow I managed like I realized that okay I just you have to already admit the fact that you can die and I felt okay, I disappear and that's it. But when you think that you will not disappear only for yourself, but you will disappear for your son, for your child, and you start to imagine his life, and you start to feel so big sorry that you won't be with him, that you won't bring him to school, to the first class. And sorry. This realization, it's killing you, like, from one side. But at the same time, it gives you so much strength because you fucking want to survive. You want to survive for your son, you want to come back, you want to bring him to school, you want to play PlayStation with him, I don't know, you want to read him so many books. And this gave me a lot of strength and this gave me a lot of light. And because this feeling this knowledge that you have some like little life who are waiting for you so much who love you so much it's unconditional love and you just have to come back and you have to survive and yeah so it's at the same time it's it's something very painful to be a mother to be a parent but at the same time it gives you a lot of strength

00:25:30: Thank you for being so open with us on this podcast Alisa. When you joined the army your son was four years old. Can you share with us, how old is your son now? 

00:25:41:   He is eight. 

00:25:42: He's already eight, so he's already in school?

00:25:45: Yeah second class, second.

00:25:48: So you were there for his first day in school?

00:25:51: Yes, yes.

00:25:54: I am so glad to hear that you have been there for his first day in school. Have any soldiers or former soldiers reached out to you after watching the film to share their reactions or feelings? What kind of feedback have you received from them?

00:26:09: Yeah, I can talk about one of my brother in arms. was actually had three children when we were together in the unit. He is a yoga guy. And yeah, he was like...

00:26:22: He's the one who is doing yoga in the trenches. 

00:26:24: Yes, yes, yes. And he's also, he was doing yoga with his children and they were in Michigan. And for him, yoga was also this way to connect with his children because what you can do with three children, different age, how you can find this connection. So for him, yoga was this connection, like that you can make yoga online with your children. And yeah, so. We talked a lot about the film after the premiere. had a premiere in Warsaw. It was a Polish premiere and Gena was actually coming back from a holiday with his family in US. And he said something which touched me. He said that this film for him, it's not a film about past. It's a film, it's instruction for future. And it's also instruction for our children. And yeah, for me, what I didn't think about this perspective because I was thinking a lot about memory, but I didn't think how this film can be important for future and for future generations. And yeah, we talked with some other, brothers in arms, and they were joking saying that it's probably one of the most tender film about war, that somehow we managed to put so much light and love and tenderness that this film becoming like much more than about war. It's becoming, it became about this inner light. And it was important for me to hear this from my brothers in arms and that they didn't complain and they didn't say, you didn't show enough action, you know or like that it looks a bit boring, it looks not so much danger because of course they knew that it was much more dangerous and you can see from them. There are some shots in the film. So, on emotional level, all felt it.

00:28:34: You also described during our conversation already that you had like at the beginning the feeling you cannot be a director anymore while being a soldier at the same time. Did that ever change at the certain moment while you were filming? Did you at some point manage kind of, you know, put together these two different roles or did it during the whole process feel like, you know, that that could not be possible being both at the same time?

00:29:01: No, I didn't feel that I was combining because I put my role as a soldier first. So filming was kind of a side thing, just kind of for saving some memory. And even one time we had a kind of fight with my deputy commander who wanted me to film sometimes a bit more, so that maybe I can edit some small videos about our unit for like their website. And I tried, I did it, I did one, like some small video about, like that we will make these portraits, like small video portraits. And I realized that I couldn't anymore. And my deputy commander was very angry at me and I said, like, but how can you imagine I will sit with my laptop editing in the trenches like how you can see it. So no, no, maybe because if you have you have it inside you, it's only your eye because when you see something you still of course you see it as a soldier you see it as a person but the way how you frame it it's your director's look and this you cannot kill him inside you so this how you frame this reality this what I had and this what what we can see in the material the frame because still, you know, you can film reality, you can frame it differently, and everybody can film differently. And I have also in our unit, there was my good friend, a soldier who was filming a lot, even more than me. I think 10 times more than me. He was filming a lot, a lot, a lot. But, and he wanted to make a short film about two of our friends, our brothers in arms who died. And I tried to help a little bit with the editing, but the problem was that the frame was, because he was not a professional cinematographer, not a professional director, and it was hard to edit because there was no frame, there was no focus. There were lots of events happening, but because there was no focus, because it was not framed, it was really hard to build the story out of it. So there is something of course which you cannot kill inside yourself, it's the framing reality and this focus and this look at the reality.

00:31:39: Would you say that the camera sometimes helped you like to distance yourself from what was happening around you or giving you a certain, you know, like task now I'm going to film and then I have like something very concrete to do, even though maybe it's a time of waiting and there is not much going on at this very moment. Did that help you also in certain moments?

00:31:59: Yeah, actually I film mainly when it was boring as hell. You have to wait and you have really nothing to do and there is no like action or something then and also one time I film, no of course I film also some funny moments also during the moment of rest or when we had food. And also filmed a lot of my talks with Stel. I recorded, I just put camera when I had this online talk or like a video talk. So I recorded a lot of our conversations in the film. It's just 5 % of this. But also there was one moment when I put on the record button, when I thought that I wouldn't survive. And it was when we had to withdraw from a place which we were supposed to liberate but our operation failed there are many soldiers who died and we had to go back and we had to walk on this minefield and just I was even not filming I just put a like rec button thinking that maybe it will be last shot and that's how this long walk was filmed through the field. Yeah.

00:33:27: Many things you just described while I was watching the film, I was not aware of, for example, that you were walking through a field that was totally mined. I imagine that there were so many things, very difficult during your time at the front lines, practical, just very difficult also, for example, to keep your equipment safe, to be sure that the material you filmed is not lost, for example, as well. How did you manage that? And were there moments when you thought like, okay, maybe I cannot save the camera, maybe I cannot save all the recordings I've filmed?

00:34:10: My camera suffered a lot. It was full of sand, dust, it did fall many times. People sometimes accidentally sit on my camera, like in the car. The Microphone, this thing to keep the microphone, was broken, totally broken. My ND filter was broken. And so it was actually, I was very surprised that it survived. And cables at the end, like cables didn't work and actually the last shot I made with the camera, was when our military base was bombed and after my camera died, absolutely died. And so, yeah, it's, it can be good advertising for Blackmagic camera. It's a surprise, like product placement. Yeah, and it's also not a camera for the frontline. It's quite heavy and sometimes if you want to take it to like some positions you have to sacrifice some bottle of water or like something because like you know there is a limited kilo that you can take with you and you can't take more because then it will be harder to walk or like so it's really strictly limited. So one time I took my camera instead of water. A bottle of water. Yeah.

00:35:30: And what did you do like when, you know, your ND filter was broken, your microphone was not working anymore? I mean, I assume there is not like, you know, an equipment store or, you know, a rental store close by where you just can get, you know, your equipment. So what did you do when your material was or your equipment was broken?

00:35:50: With a microphone, with this thing which, my brother-in-arm, Nimetz, repaired it for me. I don't know how he managed to do this because there were nothing, but he found some small things, so somehow I saved it because it's so important to me. How to say it? It's like a keeper, microphone keeper, so he repaired it. And I just film without a microphone and during the time it was like in repair. And with an ND filter I just film with the scratches, the things. If you don't film against the sun, it's hard to see that it's broken. And materials, cope because I didn't film like for, I film with a simple HD. So, and I had very small hard drives and you have… 500 gigabytes. so it's, I didn't actually feel so much. It was probably only 30 hours around after selection. Okay, maybe it was more, but after selection, it was around 30, like what we selected. And a few times I copied in Kharkiv, in our military base. I copied it and I left it there. So, yeah, but, and also I, one time when we went to this very dangerous operation, I wrote email to my good friend and colleague, Luba, to ask her in case I will die, she should take care of all what I managed to film safe and, yeah, to save it for my family to do maybe something with it.

00:37:33: I imagine that while you were editing, we briefly already talked about how it came actually to be that you came up with the idea and, you know, with your friend who was doing a movie about movie directors and other people working in the film industry. How would you describe like the editing part when you were going through all this material you have filmed?

00:37:39: First I made my selection by myself but it was and it was very hard period of time it was after death of my commander and it was horrible it was horrible horrible because even when I was watching some footages without him it was always in my mind and sometimes I was editing, during, like not editing, even watching and selecting for like five minutes and after I went to cry for 10 minutes and it was unbearable and after the selection I didn't touch it for almost one year until the moment we started to work with the editor and it was again unbearable and I realized that I have to find a way, life hack, something like that, that I will survive after this editing. And somehow it came to my mind that this film is not about death, this film is not about pain, this film is still about time when we are all alive. And that it's in a way to create this capsule of time, memory capsule. And it's about light and not about pain. And that you can encapsulate all these moments and you can come back to the time, like, by watching this film and to be together with your friends who are not anymore in your real life. And this somehow helped me to continue editing and yeah this actually what we did we created this capsule of time and and for me this film is indeed about light much more than about pain and but but there is a thing that I realize even maybe during editing or maybe even after more that we have so much pain in our life. And now it's for more than three years and still sometimes you're afraid to open Facebook and to see portraits of somebody you know with rest in peace on it and You have to find a way to deal with pain because if this pain will Fulfill you you cannot breathe and if you cannot breathe. You cannot continue fighting, you cannot resist. So you have to find a way how to take light from this pain. not... Because there is this black pain which is like putting you down, but there is some light and it's like a beautiful memory with the people. And it's also still beauty of life and it's beauty of love, friendship. So you have to balance it all the time. And for me, was during this editing process, was a lot about this right balance that we don't have to give ourselves to fall into this darkness, hatred, I don't know, just pain. We need to save light inside ourselves because we still, I don't know how long, but we have to survive mentally to continue our resistance.

00:41:13: In the film, there’s a moment where you and your comrades talk about wanting to return to your former lives — but also that those lives might no longer exist. Now that you're back and the film is out, do you feel there’s any way to return to your old life, or has everything changed?

00:41:33: There is no way to come back. It's like an abyss between our past and our, I don't know, what we have now and our future. Sometimes I cannot come back to time one year ago even. Because we are changing and I think this intensitivity of reality is changing you all the time. And you don't know what will be tomorrow. And if from tomorrow you can come back to today, to this past. And this is also something which exhausting you so much, think. it's because it's like so intensive life, so intensive things happening, so intensive pain, so intensive senses, so sometimes they're killing each other. Sometimes, you know, something bigger happens and this bigger killing something which you had before. And it's really hard to deal with it. Actually, it's every day you're waking up and you are trying to find again motivation. are creating a kind of, every day you're creating a bicycle. Bicycle in a sense, bicycle of energy, motivation, and that you have to because you have to bike. it's like sometimes you're waking up and you can say, okay, I'm lucky I survived last bombing because it's a fucking lottery. And yeah, so no, we cannot go back to this past before full scale invasion. But at the same time, we can we never come back to yesterday.

00:43:16: Your film is in essence a message to your son, Théo. Beyond that personal layer of the film. What would you wish for the audience, you know, to take away from your film, my dear Deo?

00:43:29: Maybe it's something I'm trying to tell to myself. And maybe it's something we are all trying to tell each other. Because this light coming from us, this is the biggest support. And this is our strength to survive and to fight. And to fight for this future. Actually the world is getting so crazy. So it's a message for everybody. And now I feel it much more after the election and like after everything that's happening. In a way not to get crazy. We have to keep this light inside us and we have to take care about this light. Otherwise, this world is really going to collapse. But we have to try to prevent from this final Armageddon as much as we can. And I believe that this light is something which can cure a bit.

00:44:27: You dedicated the film, My dear Théo, to all the parents who sacrificed their lives to defend the future of their children. After everything you've been through since 2014, Wat gives you strength to move forward every day, to get up every day.

00:44:42: Beautiful people. And sometimes it can be something simple. Sometimes, of course, it can be your son who are like running at six o'clock in the morning and in your bed. And after you have to create all kinds of ways to wake him up because he loves to sleep so much. So in the morning, it's like it's a big challenge to wake him up. I'm creating different songs, waking up songs for him. It's funny. And it gives energy because you have to find your own energy to wake up your son. How to say it? Great sleep sleep sleeper. How to translate it correctly in English. But after all it's people, it's your colleagues who are making amazing films and feeling very like heart conditions. It can be sellers in the supermarket smiling and joking after the bombing. I take energy from beautiful people, people who resist.

00:45:54: Thank you so much, Alisa, for everything you shared with us here today. And thank you once again more for your absolutely beautiful film, My dear Théo. Thank you.

00:46:03: Thank you.