Frédéric Gonseth and Catherine Azad have been documenting Ukraine and its neighboring countries for 30 years. The Disappeared Soldier is the result of their passionate commitment to filming the victims of war in Ukraine. The filmmakers are amazed at the irony of their fate: they arrived to document the country’s independence, but instead were drawn to the Ukrainian deportees of the time, the Soviet prisoners of war, and the victims of Nazism. They continued filming to appease the millions of ghosts left behind.
In response to the war in Ukraine, which began in the spring of 2022, the Vaudois created a solidarity network and returned to filming in “Ukraine, profaned land” to document the country’s progress towards democracy. On their return in October, they were contacted by Olga, who asked for their help in finding her friend’s son, a soldier who had gone missing after being taken prisoner.
The film, The Missing Soldier, features members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delivering food and building materials, visiting detention centers, and providing field operations. The testimonies of abuse, denial of speech, and retaliation by soldiers are predictable. Furthermore, President Zelensky condemned the Red Cross’s inaction at the G20 meeting held in November, complaining that they were not given sufficient access to prisoners.
The Disappeared Soldier offers no solution to the conflict but paints a picture of a war that is being dragged down. The melancholy music of Alexandre Cellier plays in the background, amplifying the sadness of the situation. The film will be screened at various theaters, with the directors in attendance, and will be aired on RTS. The author of the article, Cecile Lecoultre, is a University of Brussels graduate in art history and archaeology with a passion for literature and cinema.
Filming Ukraine on a daily basis
Frédéric Gonseth and Catherine Azad bring “The Missing Soldier” back from the torn country.
A mother mourns the disappearance of her son, a soldier in Ukraine, probably imprisoned by the Russians.
GONSETH / DR
Frédéric Gonseth and Catherine Azad have been surveying Ukraine and surrounding countries for thirty years. It is a long history of films and music , they comment in opening of the Disappeared soldier . The filmmaker and his screenwriter notice the irony of fate. Because the story is an eternal restart. Having once come to document the independence of a country, they have remained obsessed with the Ukrainian deportees of the time, the Soviet prisoners of war, the victims of Nazism.
To “appease these millions of ghosts”, the duo never stopped filming. Of course, friendships were made. Also, from the spring of 2022, the Vaudois reacted to the war “by knitting”, according to their formula, their previous reports in “Ukraine, profaned land”, to show the evolution of the country in its construction of a fragile democracy. In October, the filmmakers returned to the field.
A solidarity network has been operating there since 2014 and the first deadly clashes. Thus, their friend Olga called on her friends “Frédéric and Catherine from Geneva” to help her friend Iryna, who had lost track of her soldier son who had been taken prisoner. Misfortune is written like a charade, one clue leads to another until the cul-de-sac. Or to the solution. Hope lies in the exchange of prisoners, but to be able to think about it, the soldier must have been registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Otherwise, it disappears into a most disturbing nothingness.
Conceived as a report, “The missing soldier” involves various members of the ICRC engaged in field operations, delivering food or building materials, visiting detention centers under high surveillance. There, the filmmakers recorded predictable testimonies of the abuse of soldiers, the denial of the right to speak, the threats of retaliation.
Whereas in November, before the leaders of the G20, President Volodymyr Zelensky went so far as to speak of “self-destruction of the Red Cross” to castigate its inaction, officials deny while deploring the lack of access to prisoners. In a small hour marked by the melancholy music of Alexandre Cellier, “The disappeared soldier” solves nothing while plunging into the quagmire of a conflict that gets bogged down.
In the presence of the directors, Sun 2, 11 a.m., Yverdon, Bel-Air; 3 p.m., St. Croix, Royal; Mon 3, 6.30 p.m., Vevey, Rex; Tue 4, 6:30 p.m., Morges, Odéon; Thurs 6, 6 p.m., Lausanne, Cinétoile; Sat 8, 5 p.m., Échallens; Tue 11, 8 p.m., Bex, Grain d’Sel.
Then on RTS.
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In “The Missing Soldier,” Frédéric Gonseth and Catherine Azad bring to light the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the countless individuals who have been caught in its devastating effects. Through their film, they capture the struggles of families searching for their lost loved ones and provide insight into the challenges faced by organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross in their efforts to aid those affected by the conflict. While the film may not offer a solution to the complex issues at hand, it sheds light on the importance of continuing to document and raise awareness about them. Overall, “The Missing Soldier” serves as a powerful reminder of the human cost of war and the importance of striving for peace.