Courtesy of the filmmaker
Documentary is thrilled to debut the trailer of Divia, the latest film by Ukrainian filmmaker Dmytro Hreshko (Save Me, Doctor!, King Lear: How We Looked for Love During the War), set to celebrate its world premiere in the Crystal Globe Competition of this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on Sunday, July 6.
A meditative, sound-driven journey through a wounded landscape, Divia unfolds as a metaphysical symphony where nature and war converge in haunting, wordless poetry. Eschewing dialogue and narration, Hreshko invites viewers into an elemental portrait of Ukraine before, during, and beyond the full-scale invasion. Ashen forests, cratered fields, rusted war machines, and quiet ruins silently testify to destruction, while signs of rebirth—grass pushing through scorched soil, animals returning, the persistence of seasons—suggest a slow, stubborn regeneration.
Divia follows deminers, body searchers, animal rescuers, and environmentalists—figures who move like ghosts through scarred terrain. Their presence evokes both the grief of what’s been lost and the grace of continued care. Ultimately, the film becomes an act of collective witnessing—a cinematic space where beauty and devastation coexist, and silence becomes a vehicle for remembrance and renewal.
The documentary is produced by Polina Herman and Glib Lukianets, with Tasia Puhach and Dan Frank serving as executive producers. The involved firms are Gogol Film, UP UA Studio, and Valk Productions. The atmospheric score is composed by Sam Slater. The team’s past credits include Flowers of Ukraine and Antarctica: War Diaries.
Of the Starlight Creative–made trailer, Hreshko notes: “The trailer introduces the film’s core mood—moments of closeness, the stillness of landscapes, and voices that carry deep memory. It’s a story of loss, endurance, and the traces left by war. We see not only the war itself, but also what comes after: the silence, the figures, the places that remember. Out of pain, something new begins to speak—through music, through memory. Divia invites us to pause, to look closer, and to listen. Because sometimes the most powerful stories are those told in whispers—or without a voice at all.”
Davide Abbatescianni is a film critic and journalist based in Rome. He works as an International Reporter for Cineuropa and regularly contributes to publications such as Variety, New Scientist, The New Arab, Business Doc Europe, and the Nordisk Film & TV Fond website. He also serves as a funding expert for two European financing bodies.