In Kyiv, the war still seems inconceivable, but the pandemic forces a mother and her daughter to spend the lockdown in their shared apartment. The mother is a piano teacher who keeps giving lessons on the phone, on her kitchen table, with the same passion and perfectionism. Her daughter has an art studio at the other end of the apartment, yet she has swapped her paintbrushes for a camera. Ptitsa: a bird, in Russian, like those who brave winter on snow-covered windowsills.

Ptitsa

First days of the War Alina, one of the film’s protagonists, disabled after leg surgery, spends alone with the cat, in her home in a small city near Kyiv. She looks for the ways to escape. The bridges are destroyed. Alina manages to find the only road useful and get away with the cat to her parents, caught by the War in their cottage in the nearby village. For the first weeks of the invasion everyone tries to live normally. The mother conducts online lessons, the father takes care of the cats and all the other animals in the neighborhood left behind, Alina records current events with her camera. The sounds of the approaching front force the family to alter their perspective. The way one sees and feels changes. When the neighbors leave their homes, Alina and her parents, under the cover of the night, hurry to pack. However, at the last moment, the father decides to stay.