Stories

“It is important that my husband’s work does not die. Sometimes I joke that [fate] took away my personal life so that I could have more time for social causes,” Karina says.

“Sometimes you think you’ve just come to the military position to take some portraits, and then you find out that some of them are no longer alive. You realize that this is a very important shoot for their families, their loved ones, and for you because you captured them alive and smiling,” Vlada and Kostia Liberov share.

“My mother told me to go to Kostiantynivka (a town 50 kilometers from Donetsk – ed.) to my father and stepmother. It was supposed to be for a week. I packed a backpack, put two T-shirts and shorts. And in the end, I never returned home,” Lisa says.

“My husband was a decent and honest man, a wonderful family person, and a loving father. Despite having no military experience, he didn’t hesitate to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He knew what he was fighting for. He was a loyal son of his homeland,” said Olha, the wife of killed Ukrainian defender Yevhen.

“Laughter is the body’s response to stress. We live under the most stressful conditions. Yes, we do. We say, ‘It’s all right. It’s no big deal. The missile hit two blocks away. It’s fine’. But in reality, it’s not okay,” Kyrylo shares.

“The fact that she is smiling, being happy, and laughing is a protective reaction because it is tough when you cannot go where you want to. You have to take a prosthesis or crouch on one leg, get crutches or a wheelchair,” says Sasha’s mother Maria.

Lviv neurosurgeons successfully performed a complicated surgery to remove a dangerous piece and close the missing part of the boy’s skull with a titanium plate. “Now you are made with titanium, like a superhero,” Mykhailyk’s mother says to him.

On Behind Blue Eyes project last expedition, 53 children from the southern regions of Ukraine joined the project, taking more than 1000 film photographs in total. On them – both the daily routine and the traces of the military invasion.

“I used to take my mother in her wheelchair to our blossoming waterfront. She would chat with acquaintances, observe people, and watch the sunset. And she would always say, ‘How beautiful our Hola Prystan is!” recalls the daughter of Larysa, who was killed by the flood after Kakhovka HPP destruction.

“It was painful to realise it, painful to see it, painful to film it. And then you remember where they came from, and you don’t want to remind them of it. Even with your confused, sad face,” Vitalii Yurasov recalls.

“Liza had just taken her first steps along the sofa, started talking, and said her first ‘mom’ and ‘dad’,” said the girl’s aunt, Olena Tsurkalenko.