Telling a Story of War Through Women’s Eyes: A filmmaker reflects on shaping a story of resilience, healing, and peace.

When the idea for Yogis of Ukraine took shape, I realized something:

💡 I had never seen a war film told from the perspective of women.

💡 I had never seen a film about yoga during war.

I knew this film had to be different.

I wasn’t just making a documentary about war. I was capturing resilience, healing, and light in the face of unimaginable destruction.

Influences & Inspirations: Shaping the Story

As I began directing, I drew inspiration from two films that shaped my view of war storytelling:

🎥 Alain Resnais' Night and Fog (1956) – A harrowing documentary about Nazi concentration camps, blending brutal history with poetic reflection.

🎥 Humphrey Jennings' Listen to Britain (1942) – A documentary that captures life in London under Nazi bombing, focusing on everyday resilience rather than just destruction.

I wanted Yogis of Ukraine to carry the same emotional weight—not just documenting war, but showing how people endure, heal, and find meaning beyond trauma.

The Language Challenge: Balancing Subtitles & Storytelling

One of my biggest challenges was language.

📌 For a Western audience, constant subtitles can be tiring.

📌 So, I asked women who spoke English to do parts of their interviews in English.

🚀 It worked… partly.

But in Ukraine, English is a third language after Ukrainian and Russian.

💡 While English helped communicate some of their stories, the nuances—the poetry of their emotions—were lost outside their native tongue.

In the end, I realized their words needed to remain in their own language—even if that meant trusting subtitles to carry their depth and power.

Telling a Story of War Through Women’s Eyes: A Message Bigger Than Ukraine

As I got to know these women, they told me something unexpected:

💬 “This film isn’t just about Ukraine. It’s for the whole planet.”

At this point, I hadn’t even reviewed the actual interviews—I only knew the broad topics we had discussed.

But something deeper was happening.

🚀 This wasn’t just a war documentary. It was a story of spiritual resilience.

I realized the film had to work on three levels:

1️⃣ A document of war and survival in Ukraine.

2️⃣ A record of truth—of what these women wanted to share with the world.

3️⃣ A universal message of healing, light, and peace.

💡 The more I filmed, the more I saw that these women were living examples of what the world needs: courage, joy, and unwavering faith in love over fear.

Holding Space for Love in a War Zone

The yoga teacher training became a powerful lens for the film—not because it was about becoming yoga teachers, but because:

📌 It gave structure to the women’s journey.

📌 It showed how they held space for love and joy amid war.

📌 It wasn’t about yoga techniques—it was about the transformation happening within them.

This wasn’t a place filled with hatred or anger—it was filled with light, joy, and resilience.

And my job?

🎥 To capture that light and communicate it to the world.

💡 What if more people lived like these modern Ukrainian yogis? Wouldn’t the world be a better place?

Protecting the Footage: A Filmmaker’s Duty

I knew that what I was capturing was pure gold. I was telling a Story of War Through Women’s Eyes and that was very rare.

Ukraine was an active war zone—anything could happen. So I took extra precautions:

📌 Multiple copies of all footage, stored in different places.

📌 Hard drives hidden in separate locations in case of destruction.

📌 Backups constantly created and sent out of the country.

Because in war, nothing is guaranteed.

🚀 If anything happened to me, I needed to make sure the story survived.

Final Thoughts: A Film for the World

Yogis of Ukraine started as a documentary about women using yoga to heal from war.

But it became something much bigger.

💡 It became a story about resilience in the face of destruction.

💡 A message of love in a time of suffering.

💡 A call for healing—not just in Ukraine, but everywhere.

As I shaped the film, I realized:

✔ This is not just Ukraine’s story—it is humanity’s story.

✔ It is about how we face pain, loss, and fear.

✔ And ultimately, how we choose light over darkness.

💬 “Wouldn’t the world be a better place if more people lived like these modern Ukrainian yogis?”