This documentary screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the French-Ukrainian filmmaker Masha Kondakova.  

Since 2012, hundreds of Ukrainian women have joined the armed conflict against Russian separatists. But only a few have made it to the front. Female soldiers are often relegated to administrative posts and are often portrayed by Ukrainian media as oddities, who are more concerned about the way they look. But women want to play an equally important role as their male counterparts, in fighting for their country. 

INNER WARS is a war documentary by filmmaker Masha Kondakova, who went to war with three of these women. Lera, a patriot and rebel, quits her job as a journalist and joins the army. When the army packs her off to a training camp, she promptly deserts them and goes straight back to the front. The young doctor, Ira, returns from the war injured. She fights different battles in Kiev, where she has to find a new place for herself in society as a disabled war veteran. Elena volunteered to fight in 2014. She lives far away from her children and tries to balance her private and professional life. In this documentary, we meet three intrepid women who fight on several fronts simultaneously: against the separatists and against a patriarchal society. 

Born in 1989, Masha Kondakova grew up in Kiev in a family of scientists. Her childhood was shaped by the fall of the Soviet Union which left a drastic impact on her country and family. Corruption, women’s rights and nepotism are themes often explored by Kondakova in her work. 

Her first film,' LYSTOPAD', tells the story of a casual encounter between a building custodian and a thug. It was selected for the Locarno Festival, the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival and was acquired later by Canal +. Moved by the events in her homeland, Kondakova travelled to the frontline in East Ukraine to shoot a documentary feature about the female soldiers of the Ukrainian army. After several screenings in Europe, China and Iran, 'Inner Wars' (2021) is now being brought to India.