A heart-pounding new documentary on the pursuit of justice for the Ukrainian people has been released, showcasing the brave stories of women on the ground.
Directed by award-winning filmmaker Laura Warner, The Cranes Call follows war crimes investigator Anya Neistat and her team, including Ukrainian woman Solomiia Stasiv, as they track down Ukrainian survivors willing to speak about the heinous crimes of rape, torture and murder against their families by Russian soldiers.
Working with the Clooney Foundation for Justice, led by Amal and George Clooney, their mission is to document evidence of human rights abuses in Ukraine and bring Russian commanders and soldiers to trial.
“We really wanted to show the destruction that is left behind,” Warner tells Women’s Agenda. “Once the conflict has moved on from the front lines, how do people then move on and pick up their lives, and in this case, get justice for the crimes that have been committed.”
“Their homes have been destroyed. People were raped, people were tortured and brutalised. Friends and family members were executed and killed.”
Warner’s captivating film follows Anya and Solomiia, two courageous women speaking to women in Ukraine who’ve endured the most unimaginable atrocities and are still willing to speak out for justice.
“There’s real hope in the bravery of a lot of these survivors, that they can actually stand up and demand justice, even when their adversary is somebody as powerful as Putin,” says Warner.
The film is a work of art with no shortage of female storytelling, including the words of the late Ukrainian novelist and war crimes researcher, Viktoriia Amelina, whose poem ‘Testimonies’ is read by Solomiia in a hauntingly beautiful reflection on the Ukrainians’ ongoing battle for their homeland.
“Only women testify in this strange town,” Amelina writes in her poem.
“Ten speak of a survivor, a man. He’s returned from captivity. He could testify. I knock on his door, a neighbor opens. ‘It seems like he has survived, all right,’ she says. ‘Go talk to the women’.”
Bearing witness
Warner says that it’s critical to look at “what gets left behind” when it comes to seeking justice from conflict.
“Viktoriia [Amelina] was killed, and she left behind her son, but she’s also left behind this amazing body of work, of poems and writing and journalistic witnessing that she’s done,” Warner says.
The same can be said for the work of Anya and Solomiia. Warner says the film’s goal was to document their brave work collecting evidence of war crimes and try to spread the word to as many people as possible.
“It’s important that people witness and see what is happening on the ground,” Warner says.
“A lot of the time it is women and children that are left behind, and a lot of time it’s down to them to bear witness to what has happened, and to disseminate that to the rest of the world.”
Anya and Solomiia
A powerful team, Anya and Solomiia are each forces of nature in their own right, documenting Russia’s war crimes to make sure those responsible for the atrocities are held accountable and ultimately stopped.
Anya has been involved in international human rights work for more than two decades and has conducted over 60 investigations in conflict areas around the world. A Russian by birth, she has been chasing Putin’s generals who have been committing war crimes for over 25 years.
Just weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion into Ukraine, Anya went into Ukraine knowing that war crimes were going to be committed. The generals she chased in the documentary are some of the same she’s been after for their crimes in Chechnya, Georgia and Syria.
“They have been allowed to get away with this with impunity for decades, because they’ve just never been held accountable,” Warner says, noting that she was drawn to Anya because of “how she was approaching the Ukrainian conflict”.
“She knew who these generals were. She knew what war crimes they were re-committing. She had gone back into the history books, and she’d examined how to bring it to account.”
Looking back at a principle called ‘universal jurisdiction’, Anya came up with the idea to document war crimes, prosecute them as fast as possible and then use this as a deterrent for future crime.
This means that if these Russian generals who are fighting in Ukraine right now tried to leave and travel to another country, then an international arrest warrant could be waiting for them.
Young Ukrainian woman Solomiia Stasiv supported Anya in her mission.
“Solomiia was only 26 I think, when we met her,” Warner says, adding that “she [Solomiia] knew that this was what she wanted- to fight for her country. She wanted to get justice for her fellow country men and women.”
“She spends her time in occupied territories that have just been liberated, speaking to people about unimaginable trauma. Rummaging through mass grave sites, looking for evidence. It’s a lot to put on a young person’s shoulders,” Warner says about Solomiia’s work.
“But her bravery, especially in dealing with her own trauma of living in a war zone and having her own brothers on the front line and having her own friends fighting, is unimaginable.”
Victoria
There’s no lack of bravery among the Ukrainian people, whether those that are collecting evidence for justice, like Solomiia, or those that are speaking of their lived experience, like Victoria, one of the key witnesses and victim-survivors in the film.
“Victoria’s story is so important because it took so much bravery for Victoria to stand up and [speak out] that she had been raped,” Warner says.
“A lot of very young women and girls find it really difficult to admit and have not come forward and talked about the sexual abuse that they have endured themselves.”
“So for somebody like Victoria to stand up, she’s not just standing up for herself. She’s standing up for all of the other women and girls who don’t feel that they can do that. It’s bravery on multiple levels.”
Victoria was the very first person the documentary crew filmed, and also the very last. It was a full circle moment that Warner describes as “incredible” and “powerful”.
In the final scenes of Victoria’s story, Anya and Solomiia can be seen returning to Victoria’s home to ensure she knows that her bravery in speaking out has made a real impact.
“Over two years we got to know her,” Warner says about Victoria. “It was just really gratifying to see the change in her. She became so powerful through the knowledge that she was going to get justice.”
“That woman is incredible, and I can tell you that when we were filming that final scene, when she found out that her case was going to go forward in Austria, when she found out that she might get her day in court, she was the power.”
The film, The Cranes Call, is available for free viewing on SBS On Demand here.