At the start of the full-scale invasion, the city of Chernihiv was under siege by Russian forces for 37 days. Due to the encirclement and constant shelling by Russian troops, the city was left without access to water, food, or medicine. Under these conditions, women continued to give birth at the Chernihiv Maternity Hospital. The film’s protagonists share their experiences of giving birth in a bomb shelter, sharing a single cake with raisins for two weeks, and rationing medications when it was unclear whether more would be available in the near future.
CREW:
Director: Maryna Kronhlevska
Producer: Roman Bondarchuk, Maryna Kronhlevska, Tetiana Symon
Cinematographer: Roman Synchuk
Editor: Maryna Kronhlevska, Tetiana Symon
Sound: Mariia Nesterenko
Production and Sales
ГО «Докудейз» / NGO “Docudays”
Director
Marina Kronhlevska
Marina Kronhlevska was born in 1988 in the German city of Dresden. She graduated from the I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television.
She is the director of the short films That’s How Summer Ended (2013) and In Joy, and Only in Joy (2018), which won the National Competition at the Odesa International Film Festival in 2018. They also won the National Competition at the Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival in 2019.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Maryna has been actively working on documentary stories. She joined the War Archive project and served as head of the witness-interviewing department — an initiative of the Docudays UA festival team focused on documenting war-crimes testimonies. Since its launch, the team has collected more than 950 interviews with people who survived occupation, took part in evacuation efforts, or organized volunteer aid centres.
Selected Filmography
Witnesses. Place of Birth (2026), Witnesses. Captivity Kills (2024, co-director), In Joy, and Only in Joy (2018), That’s How Summer Ended (2013), Junk (2016, screenwriter)
