documentary filmmaker / researcher
lecturer in film & media practice at the University of Kent
PhD student in Film: Practice as Research
based in London / Prague
Another Summer:
Afghan and Ukrainian Stories of Exile
2024 - USA/Switzerland/Czechia/Austria
104min
co-created with David Edwards and our students
More details here!
Afghanistan and Ukraine – what do they have in common? And what remains of humanity when conflict outbursts?
Another Summer tells stories of Afghan and Ukrainian refugees in Europe through their perspective. It is a film by refugees about refugees – the directors of Another Summer provided training and equipment to a group of Afghan and Ukrainian first-time filmmakers who had taken refuge in different European countries after the Taliban takeover in 2021 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The filmmakers were divided into teams and sent to seven cities in Europe and Turkey. Their task was to record the stories of people like themselves who had fled violence and repression, capture what it nowadays means to be a refugee and gather unseen footage from their past lives and the horrors they endured. From what they brought back, one senses the bonds of people who recognize in each other what they have lost and the humanity they refuse to give up.
Does it matter where you come from when you have to leave your home, what was yours has been stolen or destroyed, and your past has been stripped away?
WHO MADE THE FILM?
Another Summer (104', 2024) captures the stories of Afghan and Ukrainian refugees in Europe. It is unique not just because of the stories it tells but also because of how it was done.
The film was shot in July 2022 by first-time filmmakers from Afghanistan (from the American University of Afghanistan), Ukraine (from the Central European University), and the US (from Williams College). The Afghan and Ukrainian students were/are refugees in various European countries, and none of the students had ever made a film before.
The footage they took was then edited by two directors, David Edwards and Alzbeta Kovandova-Bartonickova.
The film is thus a partial record of what the students saw, what they heard, and what they experienced – interpreted by David and Alzbeta.
AND HOW?
We first spent a week training our students in basic filmmaking skills. We did several practical exercises in the streets of Geneva, led many discussions, and watched examples of films – most importantly, the Chronicle of a Summer (1961) by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin, which is our huge inspiration. In this process phase, students were taught not only by Prof. David Edwards and Alzbeta Kovandova-Bartonickova but also by Prof. Victoria Fontan from the AUAF and Prof. Alessandro Monsutti from the Graduate Institute in Geneva, where the training took place.
The students were then divided into seven teams of three (one Afghan student, one Ukrainian student, and one Williams student) and sent to seven different countries (Czech Republic, Germany, France, Poland, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom) for two weeks. The only task we gave them was to meet, observe and interview refugees displaced by war.
Two weeks later, we met again at the Ethnographic Institute in Prague. We spent another week there, reviewing the footage and discussing what our students experienced.
Later that year, we, David and Alzbeta – with the students' permission – took the footage, organized it and started editing it into a feature film. It was a lengthy process since there were over 100 hours of footage in several languages (Ukrainian, Russian, Pashto, Dari, Persian, Spanish and English), which was done long distance between London (where Alzbeta lives) and Williamstown (where David lives) whenever we were free.
The first cut was finished after a year. We contacted Martin Styblo, a great sound designer based in the Czech Republic, who did the audio postproduction in Autumn/Winter 2023.
And we welcomed the 2024 with a final version of our film.
More details – including some future screenings – can be found on our website.
