August M
At this year’s Berlinale, a new documentary has brought harrowing wartime testimonies to the big screen. In “Traces”, seven Ukrainian women recount surviving imprisonment, torture and sexual violence during Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The film, presented in the Panorama section, turns deeply personal trauma into a public call for justice.
“Traces” centres on women who say they endured abuse in Russian captivity or under occupation. One of them, Iryna, guides viewers through her own experience and those of six others.
“They threatened to rape my son and said that people like us shouldn’t live,” says one woman in the trailer. “And only after that will I kill you and this child. Time stood still, and I just stood there,” reports Euronews.
Breaking the silence
The documentary premiered alongside the launch of a social impact campaign at the Ukrainian embassy in Berlin. Civil society representatives, a UN official and Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, attended the event.
The campaign seeks accountability for alleged war crimes and greater recognition of sexual violence as a weapon of war.
Director Alisa Kovalenko, herself a survivor of Russian captivity following the 2014 occupation of Crimea, told Euronews: “To be honest, I didn’t want to make this film. I just had the feeling that I had to do it. I knew it would be very, very difficult. That I would suffer. But I knew why I was doing it. It was worth it to me.”
She added: “They sacrifice their privacy. But they know what they did it for. Because they also speak for those who are still silent.”
Seeking justice
Iryna, who is part of the SEMA Ukraine association supporting survivors, said speaking publicly took years. “It took me many years to gather this strength,” she told Euronews. “I only spoke about it for the first time five years after my experience, and that wasn’t easy.”
The film avoids explicit imagery. Instead, it shows the women revisiting damaged homes and landscapes marked by mines and shelling, while their testimonies are heard in audio recordings. Kovalenko said she chose not to film the interviews to build trust and focus on unseen wounds.
According to a 2023 UN report cited by Euronews, 85 cases of conflict-related sexual violence were documented in Ukraine, affecting civilians and prisoners of war. The report noted that in many cases involving men, sexual violence was used as a method of torture in captivity. Ukrainian authorities also initiated 10 cases involving their own forces.
SEMA Ukraine argues that many incidents remain unreported and is calling for Russia to be placed on the UN’s list of parties suspected of systematic sexual violence in conflict.
“This will be our small victory. And once again, this will be proof that justice does exist,” Iryna says in the film.
Sources: Euronews, United Nations report 2023
