Ukrainian filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko, working with co-director Marysia Nikitiuk, follows activist Iryna Dovhan, a survivor of captivity in eastern Ukraine, as she travels through recently deoccupied territories collecting testimonies from women who endured conflict-related sexual violence during Russia’s war against Ukraine in Traces.
Their stories emerge gradually through conversations in kitchens, quiet interviews and fragments of recollection that accumulate into a portrait of a community negotiating trauma while seeking recognition and justice.
Kovalenko’s filmmaking has consistently unfolded at the intersection of personal experience and geopolitical reality. Her debut feature Alisa in Warland positioned the filmmaker within the landscape she documented, observing the early stages of the war in Donbas from the perspective of a young participant.
Later works such as Home Games and We Will Not Fade Away shifted toward intimate observational portraits, focusing on young people navigating life within unstable social and political environments. This method became more explicitly autobiographical in My Dear Theo, in which Kovalenko reflected on her own experiences following Russia’s full scale invasion.
Across these projects, the director has repeatedly returned to a central question of how individuals maintain agency within circumstances shaped by conflict.
Traces continues this trajectory while expanding its perspective, as the investigation is not limited to the full scale invasion but includes cases since 2014 and the Dobass war. Rather than centering a single protagonist, the film assembles a group of women connected through the survivor network SEMA Ukraine, part of the Global Network of Victims and Survivors to End Wartime Sexual Violence. Dovhan serves as a guiding presence as she travels between locations in Kherson, Kyiv and other regions, facilitating encounters among survivors and documenting their accounts.
Dovhan gathers these testimonies on behalf of the network while offering practical and emotional support to the women she meets. The collected statements are intended for use as evidence in war crimes investigations at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Kovalenko opens the documentary with Dovhan’s own account of captivity and the circumstances that led her to join the initiative, a role that eventually placed her at the forefront of the organization’s activities. Through this work, she helps other survivors regain a sense of dignity and begin to articulate experiences that have often remained unspoken.
Dovhan’s personal situation gradually becomes more complex as she undergoes oncological treatment and steps back from some of her responsibilities. The film observes how women she previously supported begin to assume parts of her role, continuing the process of testimony collection and mutual assistance within the network.
Despite its central figure, Traces adopts an approach that often resembles investigative or journalistic documentation. Kovalenko, who also serves as cinematographer, works with a compact digital camera setup that allows close proximity to participants. The framing remains direct and restrained, frequently relying on static compositions and extended takes that allow testimonies to unfold without interruption.
Although the structure recalls the format of interview based documentaries, Kovalenko avoids conventional talking head staging. During testimony sessions Dovhan records statements on her own device while the film’s camera often observes peripheral details.
The frame shifts toward hands, gestures or the surrounding environment of towns marked by the war, including damaged houses, abandoned vehicles and landscapes altered by military activity. Within this visual field the women recount detention, interrogation and humiliation in occupied territories, describing sexual violence as part of a broader pattern of coercion directed at civilians.
At the same time, the film does not present its subjects solely through the lens of victimhood. By following their participation in documentation efforts and advocacy work, Traces frames testimony as a form of civic engagement while observing the gradual process of recovery that accompanies it. The documentary outlines the situation faced by survivors of Russian aggression, many of whom initially lacked access to adequate psychological and emotional support.
As the documentary progresses, the film traces partial trajectories of recovery. Women who first appear visibly shaken by their experiences later take part in collective meetings, support sessions and documentation work. Through these interactions, Traces observes how testimony and solidarity become part of an ongoing attempt to rebuild personal agency.
Throughout the film, Dovhan and Kovalenko articulate a central aim of encouraging women to speak openly about their experiences and to seek assistance without fear or shame. The participants who share their stories on camera, including Tetiana, Mefodiivna, Galyna, Olha and Nina, demonstrate how this process unfolds in practice.
With Traces, Kovalenko continues a body of work that has gradually positioned her as a chronicler of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Across her films she has returned to the experiences of those shaped by the conflict, approaching the subject through personal encounters rather than distant observation.
While her earlier projects often examined the war through youth perspectives or autobiographical reflection, Traces shifts the focus toward collective testimony. By documenting survivors who transform personal trauma into evidence, advocacy and mutual support, the film introduces a perspective centered on civic agency and the role of testimony within processes of accountability.
The film enjoyed its world premiere at the 2026 Berlinale. Visit the festival's official site for more information.