Very early in Ukraine, I made an unconventional filmmaking decision:
🚫 I would not use real-time translation.
The interviews were conducted in both Ukrainian and Russian, depending on the region.
📌 Ukrainian is the official national language, but certain regions—especially in the east and south—have historically spoken more Russian.
📌 I do not speak either language.
Yet, I deliberately chose not to have someone translating in real-time.
Why I Chose Filming a War Documentary Without Real-Time Translation
🎥 As a filmmaker, my priority was preserving the intimacy of these moments.
I knew that:
1️⃣ Stopping for translations would disrupt the flow and emotion of the conversation.
2️⃣ Having a translator in the room might alter how freely the women expressed themselves.
3️⃣ Listening without words forced me to rely only on their body language, tone, and emotion.
💡 I wanted these women to feel completely heard—without interruption, without judgment, without filtering their words for an English-speaking outsider.
🚀 Only when I returned to the U.S. and had the interviews translated did I realize the depth of what they had shared.
A Universal Message—But Not Always a Shared Opinion
From my American perspective, I initially felt that all these Ukrainian women spoke with a singular, universal message for the world.
💡 But during an early screening of the film’s rough cut, some of these same women were quick to point out that they did NOT all agree with each other.
🔹 Their differences weren’t about yoga—they were about war.
🔹 Specifically, how they felt about Russians.
In the West, we like clean narratives:
✔ Good vs. Evil
✔ Peace vs. War
✔ Forgiveness vs. Hate
But reality—especially in war—is much more complex.
Forgiveness in War: An American Fantasy?
While in Odesa, between air raid sirens, I had a very American conversation with one of the Ukrainian yogis:
💬 "Can’t Ukraine and Russia come together? Can’t you forgive? Maybe in time, we can all heal?"
Her passionate response changed my perspective forever.
She said:
💬 "Imagine a woman being raped. In the middle of the rape, you try to get her to see that her attacker is ALSO in pain and hurting, and you ask if she can forgive him—for what he is doing—while it is still happening."
💡 Forgiveness may come in ten years, but not while the trauma is still actively unfolding.
I was stunned.
I had never thought about it that way.
Balancing Individual Perspectives with a Shared Message
Both in the film and in this book, I worked hard to honor each woman’s perspective.
✔ Some spoke about peace.
✔ Some spoke about resilience.
✔ Some spoke about the impossibility of reconciliation—at least right now.
At the same time, I couldn’t ignore what I personally witnessed:
💡 Despite their differences, all of them were saying something powerful—something the world needed to hear.
A message that went beyond war.
A message of inner strength, self-healing, and resilience in the face of destruction.
Final Thoughts: The Power of Listening Without Words
Looking back, I don’t regret filming a war documentary without real-time translation
✔ It forced me to listen deeply—to emotion, rather than just words.
✔ It gave these women uninterrupted space to tell their truth.
✔ It helped me see the layers of their experience—not just the parts I wanted to hear.
Because sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do…
💡 Is simply to listen and witness.