As part of the project Bliscy (“Close Ones”), the Ukrainian Volunteer Service and Hromadske approached us to create a film about a courageous volunteer named Stefan.

Bliscy is a documentary project that highlights the stories of volunteers working in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. One of these stories is that of Stefan, who found himself under russian occupation in
Nova Kakhovka. Together with his friends, he founded the Humanity Foundation to provide aid to civilians. Since the beginning of russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Stefan and his team have been delivering humanitarian assistance to local residents, collecting donations, and risking their lives to help others.

There are countless stories of such everyday heroism in this war, and sharing them is incredibly important. The project’s message — Ukrainians are close to Ukrainians — deeply resonated with us.

Working on this film was especially meaningful. Volunteers are also heroes of this war, and our goal was to tell Stefan’s story in a way that would not only inform the audience but also move and immerse them emotionally.

As part of this collaboration, we developed the script, organized and conducted the interview and filming, and carried out the full post-production process.