Mariinka

Long before Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, there was already a war in Mariinka, a frontline city in eastern Ukraine. For ten years, Pieter-Jan De Pue has followed the lives of young people growing up amid a conflict that is slowly destroying their city and their future.

Natasha, a promising boxing talent, becomes a military paramedic. Angela, who lost her parents at a young age, tries to survive by smuggling goods across the frontline. Brothers Mark and Ruslan fight on opposite sides of the front and thus against each other. Their youngest brother Daniil follows the war from afar, safe with his adoptive family in the United States.

MARIINKA was filmed over the course of ten years on 16mm film, documenting the slow disappearance of a city, but also the fierce and tragic resilience of the people who once called Mariinka home. Their lives unfold like a modern Greek tragedy, in which family, friendship and loyalty are pushed to their limits.

The film is Pieter-Jan De Pue’s long-awaited second feature, following his Sundance Film Festival award-winning debut THE LAND OF THE ENLIGHTENED, which we screened again last June.

Once again, De Pue proves himself to be an exceptional storyteller and filmmaker, capable of grounding universal and timeless themes in a concrete social reality.

MARIINKA was the opening film at both CPH and Docville. At both festivals, the film received an award: the Audience Award in Copenhagen and the Jury Prize for Best National Film in Leuven.