Much of the American media coverage of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine has focused on the geopolitical tensions between the East and the West and the efforts of soldiers stepping out onto the battlefield. There has been a limited effort to engage with the works of Ukrainian artists responding to the trauma and devastation that the conflict has wrought. For Ukrainian-American filmmaker David Gutnik it was essential to highlight the perspectives of those who use artistic expression as a form of resistance to wartime repression. His documentary Rule of Two Walls (2023) focuses on a diverse set of artists and intellectuals who attempt to continue practicing their crafts in the face of unimaginable horrors. It arrives at a time when calls to preserve Ukrainian culture have become particularly urgent and necessary and manages to perceptively address the concerns of the present moment.
Zita Short spoke with David Gutnik about the Washington Post article that inspired the making of the documentary, his own family history in Ukraine and the long-lasting legacy of Aleksandr Dovzhenko.
Zita Short: This documentary primarily focuses on the role that artists play in documenting and responding to the devastating effects of wartime aggression. How would you say that your documentary engages with the debate over whether artists and intellectuals can meaningfully contribute to resistance movements?
David Gutnik: My family is from Ukraine…my mother’s side is from the East, my father’s side is from the West, my great-grandparents are from Crimea. I have inherited a colonized sense of my own identity, it has been distorted by colonization. My first language is Russian and not Ukrainian. I don’t know my mother tongue and neither do my parents. I began to question the manner in which my origins, my history, my heritage had been discussed. I think this distortion occurs because history is written by the winners. Ukraine has been subsumed and dominated by Russia for three centuries and it has only been a free nation for a little more than three decades. That’s not enough time to write your own history. I am also an artist so I went to Ukraine thinking that I was going to tell a story about refugees but while I was there I read an article in the Washington Post about these artists in Ukraine. Everything switched for me after reading this article.
I was on a bus into Ukraine and I got in touch with the director of the Lviv Municipal Arts Centre. I don’t know if I’ve answered your question but I would make the case that every film is political. Superhero films are political. They come embedded with a pro-military-industrial complex mindset and help to support American cultural imperialism. When a superhero movie plays in Bangladesh, those values are being exported. When a big American film plays in Bangladesh, it means that smaller local productions are being crowded out of the cinema. You grapple with politics when you focus on the dissemination of information. This has been weaponized in the Russia-Ukraine War to an extreme degree. Putin has stated that Ukraine doesn’t exist and doesn’t have its own history and doesn’t have its own culture. That misinformation is used to justify waging war and committing genocide. The information space is a frontline. It’s a war of identity, it’s a war of memory. We are questioning who gets to tell the story of Ukrainian history. When you’re a journalist or an artist engaged in this conflict your work has life or death stakes. I don’t say this to minimize the contributions of soldiers who are risking their lives and losing their lives. I don’t mean to relativize. However, I think it’s plain to see that the spread of false information can have dire effects in this conflict.
Zita Short: There is also a great emphasis placed on the process of Russification in the documentary. You question how Ukrainian culture can survive in the face of forced cultural assimilation. How do you, as someone with roots in Ukraine, respond to art produced in this region during the Soviet Period. How do you feel about the works of, say, Dovzhenko, who had to find a balance between making concessions to Soviet authorities and presenting an authentic portrait of Ukrainian culture?
David Gutnik: I recently made a short film in tribute to my grandmother, who recently passed away, and I was using snippets from old silent films in it. I was talking about it with my producer and she noted that Dovzhenko’s films are still very well-received in Ukraine. You can’t cancel Dovzhenko. I am not somebody who is going to sit here and say who gets to survive these kinds of historical dialogues. There are realities that artists have to face. Filmmakers like Dovzhenko had to make concessions to government officials. It sorts of reminds me of how French New Wave filmmakers fell in love with directors like Nicholas Ray and Howard Hawks who managed to work within the Hollywood system while still smuggling their own ideas into films that had been heavily censored. Maybe it’s a bit like that.
Zita Short: How did you contact a lot of the people involved in the documentary and how did you get them to agree to take part?
David Gutnik: I didn’t know anyone when the war began. I reached out to Stefan, a cinematographer who had worked on the Sergei Loznitsa film Maidan (2014). I reached out to him over Signal and told him I was a fan of his work. I asked him if he was safe and told him I was coming to Ukraine. I said I wanted to help and was hoping to make a film. He messaged me back and we started talking every night. We got close and then he connected me with his producer, who was very well-established in Ukraine. After the war, began she became a resistance fighter overnight. Whatever career she had before, she left it behind to become a fixer. We started talking quite a bit and she helped me to get military clearance to shoot in Ukraine. She also helped me to get journalist credentials. I reached out to her after reading the Washington Post article and she said that it resonated with her too. She also helped me to get my director of photography and my great sound guy. That meant I already had a crew in place when I arrived in Ukraine.
Zita Short: In the press notes, you state that your daughter was born shortly after you made the film. You make the point that it is important to preserve Ukrainian history and culture for the generations still to come and for members of the Ukrainian diaspora. What role do you think the diaspora can play in preserving Ukrainian culture and supporting the war effort?
David Gutnik: I think the Ukrainian diaspora has been playing a big role. I think many members of the diaspora are victims of this rewriting of Ukrainian history. My family arrived in America before the fall of the Soviet Union. We are like hornets in a nest and we were still and dormant for a long time. Then the invasion occurred and Ukraine resisted. Suddenly, it was like all of the hornets in the nest were able to break free and announce their existence to the world. I think there has been a global awakening among members of the diaspora. My mother and I have never agreed on a single thing politically until this full-scale war began. For a long time, she misidentified as a Russian but now she’s ready to step onto the front lines. There’s been an incredible movement of support for Ukraine that, even if it’s not vocal or financial, has been significant on a cultural level. This is an important part of the story of Ukrainian history and we have a role to play in defending Ukraine.
