Flight of a Bullet

“Shot in one harrowing take, Bubenec’s tense handheld dispatch begins at a blown-up bridge in embattled Eastern Ukraine, before detouring into an interrogation at a makeshift base and dissipates into ornery chatter among bored and aggrieved soldiers. Her war-zone film gripped the small crowd with whom I watched it, dropping us in media res at the thoroughly dicey Russian-Ukraine conflict. The whole scenario—which could be plucked wholesale for a fictional thriller—neatly captures the frontier justice at work, but it’s also an instant window into how the bloodshed of war pervades life and aggravates and enables male aggression.” —Nicolas Rapold (True/False Film Fest 2018 dispatch)