00:08the ukrainian embassy in berlin falls silent as the trailer for the documentary film traces plays
00:14the film tells the story of six women who survived russian captivity
00:19they report on torture and sexual violence the protagonists are also present at the event in
00:25berlin one of them is irina she talks about imprisonment abuse and trying to preserve her
00:31dignity the film does not show explicit depictions of violence instead the women return to places from
00:53their past to houses that are partly destroyed to walls with bullet holes to devastated gardens
00:59there they tell their stories director alisa kovalenko deliberately chose this form
01:06and when i was in her son region it was after the occupation and i also saw this traces of
01:13this war
01:13traces of russian aggression everywhere it was like mine fields burning fields like destroyed houses but
01:23also wounded people but there are some wounds which were out like we can see visible and invisible
01:29and i started to think about how we can build this actually uh co-existence of these visual traces and
01:38invisible traces on the sidelines of the berlin nales several civil society representatives at the embassy
01:45are supporting the women's initiative called sema which fights against sexual violence as a weapon of war
01:51and supports those affected the ukraineer heute can a good example of how society works how democracy
02:05is protected and what are the european values that are based on our consciousness in europe
02:16despite the gravity of the reports there is also a sense of solidarity the women see their voices as
02:22a sword against the violent acts of russian soldiers
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