When Spring Came to Bucha
Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2023
May 31 - June 11, 2023
In March 2022, Russian troops withdraw from a small town in the Kyiv region, and Ukrainian citizens emerge from their homes to clean their streets, rebuild, and face a new day while grieving all that’s been lost. This film poignantly captures how a small community continues with life amid trauma and loss, while war rages on close by.
Q&A with Mila Teshaieva and Masha Gessen, Russian-American journalist, author, and translator on June 6
In early 2022, the Ukrainian city of Bucha near the capital, Kyiv, was occupied by the Russian army for several weeks. After a month of intense fighting, the Russian army withdrew, leaving the city destroyed in its wake.
In March 2022, after Russian troops withdrew from Bucha, Ukrainian civilians emerged from their homes to clean their streets, rebuild, and face a new day while grieving all that was lost. With beautiful cinematography, the renowned photographer Mila Teshaieva captures stories of the residents as they clean their streets of debris and rebuild their shattered homes amid trauma and loss, while war rages nearby.
Yuri, a municipal services manager, struggles to keep people supplied with clean drinking water. Olenka is the only pupil in her classroom after two of her classmates are killed, the rest having left the country. Yet amid the suffering, a young couple gets married, and life must go on.
This film is captioned and audio-described; the discussion panel following the film will be live-captioned.
When Spring Came to Bucha also screens digitally nationwide between June 5 – 11 on HRWFF’s digital streaming platform. Watch here.
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