Director's statement:

With My Kharkiv: Fortress of Solitude, I want to make the war tangible through the stories of people who have been living through it for almost five years. Kharkiv is my hometown. I left in my early twenties to build a journalism career and start a family in New York. When Russia’s full-scale invasion began, I watched from thousands of miles away as the place where I grew up came under attack. As a journalist and filmmaker, I felt compelled to go back to Kharkiv during the war, despite having two young children in New York and knowing I would be traveling close to the front line. I saw my university reduced to rubble. My high school was damaged by shrapnel. My parents’ apartment stands abandoned and empty. They left the country because of the war. It became impossible to remain only an observer. In my work at Forbes, I hear political leaders, military experts and policymakers discuss Ukraine and the war. In Kharkiv, people are not just discussing the war. They are living it. I kept returning to Kharkiv to film life as it continued amid daily drone and missile attacks. People were working, making art, raising children, falling in love and meeting friends through air raid sirens, power outages and missile strikes. They were refusing to let the war define every moment of their lives. Katya Soldak