298 people were killed in our house, we have to speak out – Roman Lyubiy about the film “Iron Butterflies”

Roman Lyubiy is a Ukrainian film director and a member of the association “Bavylon’13”, which was formed at the beginning of the Revolution of Dignity. His film Iron Butterflies debuted this year at the Sundance Independent Film Festival. The tape tells about passenger flight MH17, which was shot down in Donetsk region by a Russian Buk in 2014. All passengers and crew — 298 people — died in the crash. At the scene of the crime, physical evidence was found – fragments in the shape of a butterfly, which are characteristic of a Russian rocket launcher.

The film combines facts, archival footage and newsreels with theatrical fantasy elements-reflections; talks about the realities of this attack and its impact on the escalation of Russia’s war against Ukraine; and also investigates the working mechanisms of Russian propaganda.

Voice of America journalist Maria Ulyanovska spoke with director Roman Lyubi about working on the film, “Sundance” and the warnings that the tape broadcasts.

The interview has been edited for flow and clarity.

Maria Ulyanovska, Voice of America: Roman, one of the important themes of the film is the study of Russian propaganda, chronicles from the Russian news echo with real footage of events. Tell us how you collected the materials.

Roman Love: This is the biggest international war crime of the Russian-Ukrainian war, and Russia has created a lot of myths around it. We were interested to see and show how this machine works from the inside. We collected propaganda videos and reinforced them with each other. [Наприклад, у фільмі є сцена, де у російських новинах говорять, що сепаратисти збили українській літак, і в наступному кадрі та сама ведуча розповідає, що літак збили українські військові – ред.]

At the press conference for the relatives of the victims in the Netherlands, when we had already filmed everything, I became interested to see how Russian journalists work. I wanted to find how they twist the context. And we were lucky to find that the interview, which we saw with our own eyes, was later broadcast on Russian TV channels. Of everything that our hero Robi said, the Russians gave only a phrase taken out of context: “It’s a pity that Russia is not represented in the investigative team.” But if you listen to what he says next in our video, it is clear that something is wrong.

M.U.: And how did you find this hero? Tell us about him.

R.L.: That’s how we found him [герой давав коментар російським журналістам – ред.] Later it turned out that he was traveling to the place of the plane crash. He is a former military man, a musician, very open, and I offered him to take part in the artistic part of our film. Not all relatives of the dead can speak. And Robi can. His niece Daisy died in MH17 and he considers media activism his mission.

M.U.: Among the archival videos in the film, you show chronicles from the scene of the events, where the local population rejoices that the plane was shot down. How does the foreign audience react to it?

R.L.: Of course, it is bitter and painful for us to show this, because these people are our fellow citizens. But I explain such a reaction to the influence of propaganda. Russian propaganda is so powerful that it can be compared to the effects of radiation. That is, these people seem to be irradiated. We also explain that with the beginning of the war, many decent people left Donbas, and those who remained rejoiced at the downed planes.

M.U.: The film blurs the line between feature film and documentary film. Tell us about his artistic part.

R.L.: There are a lot of journalistic films about MH17, and I didn’t want to make another one. But I was missing something – the topic is not closed, first of all, for us Ukrainians. There is a part of the traditional investigation in the film, but it is not the main thing. It also contains poetry, which is characteristic of Ukrainian cinema. When we started working on the film, it was clear that the case files would be closed while the trial was going on, and we started working with open sources. To give form to all this, I allowed myself to think about theater and choreography, although it seemed to people to be absolute madness. But our team accepted my idea. For me, this is a convenient form of communication, because words often get in the way, and it is easier to express an opinion with a gesture.

M.U.: These reflections are your personal ones, or did they appear after conversations with the victims?

R.L.: When we developed this project and presented it on international platforms, we were often asked: “What is your personal attitude to what happened”? After the full-scale invasion, the issue disappeared. It became obvious to everyone what our connection with the topic is. 298 people were killed in our home, and we have to speak about it somehow.

M.U.: The film skillfully showed the connection between the MH17 tragedy and the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine. What meanings did you put into it?

R.L.: We started working on the film in 2019, and it served as a warning to the international community all the way up to the full-scale invasion. Unpunished evil will always grow, it is incredibly dangerous. And when a full-scale invasion took place, the meaning of this warning disappeared. For a while I lost the meaning of this film and any desire to make films. Later, we found the meaning and decided to add an episode from 2022 – it is connected by a phrase of a Dutch prosecutor who, quoting Solzhenitsyn, says: “Violence can only be justified by lies, and lies must be justified by violence. That is why it is necessary to deal with this case in order to prevent new violence in the future.” On the word “future” we show the episode of the evacuation of civilians from Irpen. The whole movie is in this collage.

M.U.: In one of the interviews, you said that the film is designed to clarify who is who. Did you achieve this goal? Does the world understand who is right and who is wrong?

R.L.: War has changed a lot. In 2014, it was a hybrid war in which the values ​​of media and armed confrontation were equal. After February 24, the information war receded into the background. Russia is more concerned with informational influence on its audience. They have already clarified everything themselves. We only shared our point of view. And they themselves, having started the invasion, made it clear where the black is and where the white is. Now it is clear who is the criminal here.

M.U.: Tell us how the film was received at Sundance.

R.L.: The premiere was in an old cinema. We didn’t really like the sound and the audience reacted quite strangely. It was mostly a professional community. And later there was another screening – for ordinary people, and they were delighted with the film, stayed to talk with us, asked about the war. People are very inspired that they have the opportunity to communicate with real Ukrainians.

I thought I’d feel weird here because it’s so far from home. And in general, this is a ski resort. We came from the opposite side of reality. But I sincerely feel that we are doing our important work here. People are inspired by meeting us, we thank them for their help, tell us what we are fighting for, who our enemy is, and there is a feeling that we are now in our place.

M.U.: The last question I want to ask is about the scene from the furniture store — it impressed me the most. Tell us about it and why you included it?

R.L.: This is my favorite scene. We paste an archival film from the 1960s and 70s about how the BUK system is arranged together with a modern Russian TV story about a furniture company from St. Petersburg that made a cot in the shape of this system. This is such schizophrenia. But the manufacturer of this furniture, who is being interviewed, does not understand what is wrong. He says “we are not journalists, not politicians, we do not support violence, we are just furniture makers”. This piece is a diamond, it well depicts how Russians absolutely do not perceive themselves as citizens of their country, they are excluded from reality.