Their most recent film, The War of Chimeras, had its New Zealand debut last month at Auckland’s Capitol Cinema.
Their most recent film, The War of Chimeras, had its New Zealand debut last month at Auckland’s Capitol Cinema.
After escaping Ukraine, a mother-and-daughter pair are creating a new documentary about reconnecting with their father and grandfather halfway around the world in New Zealand.
Mariia and Anastasiia Starozhytska arrived in New Zealand over one year ago on the Ukrainian Special Visa to join relatives who live in the Auckland suburb of Glendowie.
Mariia’s father - and Anastasiia’s grandfather - has lived in New Zealand for over 25 years. However, half of their family remains in Ukraine.
“We are in constant contact with Ukraine, where part of our family remains - my husband and another daughter are now in Kyiv, and many friends, including all those who can be seen in the film, are now at war,” Mariia said.
Thanks to the impressions received in New Zealand, the directors began working on a new documentary.
Kiwi Dad is a personal story of 56-year-old Mariia bridging the gap with her father, whose name she did not know until she was 16 years old.
Their film’s working title is Kiwi Dad.
It is a personal story about 56-year-old Mariia bridging the gap with her father, whose name she did not know until she was 16 years old and whom she saw once before he left Ukraine for New Zealand.
“I only met him once when I was very young,” she said.
“It is an interesting story of people who finally find each other 17,000 kilometres from home.
“For the first time in my life, I have a father.”
Their most recent film The War of Chimeras had its New Zealand debut last month at Auckland’s Capitol Cinema.
It follows a battalion of Ukrainian conscripts attempting to retake the eastern city of Ilovaisk in 2014, six months after the initial occupation by Russian forces.
It was filmed from the very beginning of the 2014 Ukrainian “Revolution of Dignity”, then during the Russian invasion of Crimea and Donbas of 2014-2015, while some of the filming done in the warzone by fighters and war photographers.
One of them, Max Levin, was killed by Russian soldiers in March 2022 during the first days of the large-scale invasion when he was filming the evacuation of civilians from Bucha, a village outside Kyiv.
Anastasiia said many of the soldiers in the battalion were volunteers who never believed they would be fighting the Russian army.
“Yesterday, they were builders, IT programmers, farmers, and a friend who worked as a child animator who had never held a gun in their lives.”
The film also contains a love story between Anastasiia and builder-turned-sniper Lavr.
She described the film as a “sensory observation of how ordinary Ukrainians decided to defend their country’s independence from Russian aggression”.
