Three filmmakers offer an observational portrait of everyday life consumed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Filmed over two years across the country, Militantropos follows refugees, resistance fighters, farmers, and civilians who stay behind—capturing how they adapt, flee, rebuild, or simply endure. Fragments of daily existence, reshaped by war, are woven together to reveal not only the instinct for survival but also the profound human need to connect, even amid utter devastation.

Militantropos—a portmanteau of the Latin milit (“warrior”) and the Greek antropos (“human”)—names a state in which war transforms humanity into a force of warriors, while conflict itself becomes inseparable from the human condition. The film approaches the war in Ukraine from a strikingly different angle. Rather than documenting destruction or charting the conflict’s progression, it assembles a series of static, composed images in which humanity is absorbed into war, and war seeps into the very fabric of life.

From its opening frames—ashen smoke billowing skyward, the faces of those who watch, scenes of military training, and the ruins of deserted spaces—the film layers barren landscapes, shattered architecture, and the routines of life under siege. Through this measured, almost meditative gaze, it captures the lasting imprint war leaves on both individuals and communities. Yet it also finds life persisting amid devastation: people tending to daily tasks, fleeting signs of resilience, the quiet insistence of survival.

What makes Militantropos remarkable is how it renders both the psychic terrain of war and its physical spaces as spectacle. The visual power of its tableaux is amplified by a dense, immersive soundscape—the roar and rumble of the battlefield resonating through each image, heightening the tension that hums beneath the surface. In this potent fusion of sight and sound, the film not only evokes the visceral reality of war but also invites a profound contemplation of the inner landscapes it shapes and scars.

Square Eyes

berry@squareeyesfilm.com​