An epic and visionary documentary, shot on 16 mm and filmed over 10 years, ‘MARIINKA’ is the second feature documentary by Pieter-Jan de Pue after the highly praised ‘The Land of the Enlightened’ (2016). 

MARIINKA begins long before the world watched the full-scale invasion. In eastern Ukraine, the film traces several young Ukrainians whose lives have been forever shaped by more than ten years of war and conflict in the Donbas region.

In the Ukrainian frontline town of Mariinka, amidst the war, a promising boxing talent becomes a military paramedic, a girl smuggles unexpected goods across the front line to survive, and two brothers fight against each other on opposite sides of the front line—while their youngest brother lives safely far from the war with an adoptive family in the United States. For ten years, Pieter-Jan De Pue recorded the slow disappearance of a city, but also the fierce, tragic perseverance of those who once called it home.