This black-and-white clip is only one minute long, but it stirs a plethora of emotions within the viewer. The goal of this animation is not only to remind that more than 1.5 million people have left their homes following the war in eastern Ukraine, but also to show that mistrust and prejudice can kill no worse than bomb shells.
Animated movie Everyone Needs a Home has received its second award – the Gold Medal at Molodiya Festival of Social Video Advertising, organized by the UN Refugee Agency and creative agency PROVID. Before that, the film had already received the Gold Award at the 9th Kyiv National Festival of Social Advertising.
The cartoon was made by a creative group of IDPs from eastern Ukraine. “The basis of the story is my own experience – on July 10, 2014 my family was fleeing by train from Donetsk to Kyiv. We were six in one compartment, with only two suitcases for the whole family, one of which was filled with diapers and food for toddlers. Frightened children could not sleep, they asked: ‘Where are we? Why didn’t we take our toys?’ I could do nothing but sing them a lullaby, as we were hearing explosions all around. A few days later, the railroad near Donetsk was destroyed by a bomb,” says Iryna Erkan, author of the film’s idea and producer.
According to Iryna, she had the idea to let the public know about the problems of IDPs a long time ago, a few weeks since her arrival from the war zone.
“At first we had a team of three people: me, Denys Denysenko, and Maxym Korotych. We all come from Donetsk, having left the city at about the same time in 2014. The three of us came up with several scenarios in an evening, but it took two weeks to choose the most promising one,” continues Iryna. “The art for Everyone Needs a Home was created by Maria Lysychenko, who had left Donetsk immediately after the outbreak of hostilities, and lives now in Ivano-Frankivsk with her family. The production was taken care of by Volodymyr Lykov, founder of an animation studio, who also had moved to Kyiv from Donetsk. Ryta Symonova, the artist-animator who breathed life into our animated character, is also a displaced person from Donetsk. The song was written by Natalia Zhihalkina-Slynko – she has been living in Kyiv for many years, but she helps families from Donetsk. Two families had been living in her Kyiv apartment for a year after the start of the war. A little later Mykola Oliinychenko from Donetsk joined our team to work on the sound. All project participants have done their work for free. As for the festival’s cash prize, we are going to donate it to help internally displaced persons.”
Iryna Erkan says that by making this video, the creative team wants to change the public perception of IDPs in Ukraine. “We also want to support people who have lost their homes in their own country and make the state pay attention to their problems,” she said. And it is a sound plan, because after the ceremony the team has signed an agreement with the UN Refugee Agency to broadcast the film on TV and other media platforms.
“IDPs are the people who experience the distrust of other citizens daily. But we understand that it takes time to make a difference in Ukraine. We hope that this short story would make a small step towards understanding of one another. War kills. But words kill as well. And distrust also kills. Sometimes it is very difficult to understand and accept someone. This takes time. But we can take the first steps today,” sums up Erkan.
The video is available on YouTube.
