The Infinity of War

Ukrainian filmmaker Zoya Laktionova and security and peacebuilding advisor Olga Kotiuk will share their work and discuss the infinity of war: how they start and how they end; their impact on civilian populations; how we might possibly escape or avoid the influence of war. The discussion will be preceded by a screening of Laktionoya’s short film, Territory of Empty Windows, which features her hometown of Mariupol and explores the devastating impact war has had and continues to have on both personal and environmental levels. The short documentary will be followed by This Rain will Never Stop, a feature-length film by Alina Gorlova, which examines the relentlessness of war through the life of Andriy Suleyman, who escapes civil war in Syria only to find himself in Ukraine as another war breaks out.

Zoya Laktionova was born in Mariupol in 1984. She made her first appearance in the world of documentary cinema as a character in the film, Ma, in 2017, and a year later she directed her first short documentary, Diorama, about the mined sea in the Mariupol area. The film won an award in the MyStreetFilms category at the “86” festival (Ukraine) in 2018, was selected by several European film festivals, and was released in Ukraine in 2019. Territory of Empty Windows premiered in 2021 at the DocudaysUA International Human Rights DFF and received several awards in various festivals across Europe.

Olga Kotiuk is an expert in armed conflict studies, peacebuilding, social cohesion, and overcoming the consequences of war. Since 2018, she has been working on qualitative research on armed conflicts, peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction. Currently, Olga is a consultant of the Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine, a multi-donor stabilisation program. She is working on the issues of identity transformation, social cohesion, and government and civil society engagement in preparation for Ukraine’s post-war transition. Olga holds an MSc degree in Conflict Studies (LSE) and an MA in Theory of State and Law (KNU). Olga is an alumna of the Chevening Program 2019-2020.