Abel Ferrara’s film about Ukraine premiered at the Berlinale

At the 74th International Film Festival, which opened in Berlin, the documentary film “Salt on the Wounds” by the American director Abel Ferrara about the war in Ukraine was shown out of competition.

Ferrara went to Ukraine to find an answer to the question of why the barbaric war started, which brought so much suffering. Among his interlocutors are President Volodymyr Zelensky, the head of his Office Andrey Yermak, military personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and ordinary citizens of Ukraine who were in the war zone. Ferrara filmed in Borodyanka and other cities of the Kyiv region, captured by Russian troops in February 2022, and asked residents about how they survived the occupation.

One of the vivid interviews in the film is the story of a Ukrainian serviceman who was seriously wounded and spent two days on the battlefield until his comrades accidentally found him. He lost his hand, miraculously survived and describes his extreme experience.

Footage from Ukraine combined with fragments of singer Patta Smith’s performance at the Pompidou Center in Paris. Smith performs his songs, recites texts by Antonin Artaud, Arthur Rimbaud and René Domal. Her show is not related to the war in Ukraine, but the director needs it for contrast. He considers Smith and her stage energy to be the embodiment of life, and Russian aggression to be the embodiment of death and decay. Abel Ferrara does not find an answer to the question of why Russia needed the war, but Vladimir Zelensky explains to him how Ukraine was able to survive: thanks to the courage and strength of spirit of ordinary people, including children.

• Abel Ferrare (b. 1951, New York) became famous for his feature films and documentaries. Among them are “City of Fear” (1984), “Bad Lieutenant” (1992), “Pazoliny” (2014). In recent years, the American director has been living in Rome.
• The Berlin Film Festival opened on February 15 with the Irish drama “Such Little Things”. Representatives of various political forces were invited to the opening ceremony, but on February 8 it was announced that the festival management was withdrawing the invitations sent to members of the far-right Alternative for Germany party.
• The main competition of the festival includes the paintings of Olivier Assayas, Bruno Dumont, Mata Diop, Viktor Kosakovsky, a native of Leningrad living in Germany. There are no Russian films in any of the program sections of the Berlinale. The festival will end on February 25.