In Ukraine. victory singing

At the time of our telephone meeting, Marc Wilkins is in Berlin. This Swiss director who lives in kyiv was to shoot some sequences there with one of the musicians of the group to which he is devoting his next documentary. “He did not have permission to leave Ukraine, the Ministry of Culture refused him permission. It’s incomprehensible. I don’t even think about the money or the time wasted. I think about the fact that musicians are also affected by war, that war destroys people’s lives in a multitude of ways.”

We imagine him furious, but he has the courtesy to talk to us about it as if it were only a minor annoyance. After all, he’s probably seen others. In recent years, Marc Wilkins has become interested in disturbing, even painful subjects, such as our collective responsibility for the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean or the failure of the American dream.

Today, he films the daily life of a group of Ukrainian musicians who question their role and their responsibility while their country is in danger. “At the start of the Russian invasion, I couldn’t listen to a single note of music. For several weeks, this was unthinkable. I believe that it is an animal reflex which forces us, in a situation of danger, to mobilize all our attention and all our resources. It’s a survival reflex. And then, over time, we become aware of another need, that of celebrating life and creation, especially since we are threatened with death at any moment.”

A concert to supply drones

But when you play the guitar while others die on the front, it takes more than pretty phrases to get rid of an inevitable feeling of guilt. Marc Wilkins tells us the story of this Ukrainian musician who, thanks to his concerts, raised funds to finance the purchase of drones which he himself transported to the Ukrainian lines. “Misha went to Kramatorsk, a city where many people were dying every day. And then something decisive happened. A Ukrainian officer told him that he was indeed more useful by doing that than by taking up arms. He gave him his blessing. And hearing that, he felt liberated. Myself, when Russia invaded Ukraine, I first went to Berlin. But I couldn’t accept being there, drinking a cappuccino sitting on a terrace while the country was under attack. I ended up coming back and even considered joining the foreign legion. But I had no skills, I wouldn’t even have been able to fly a drone. It was confirmed to me that I could not be recruited and I felt relieved from then on. I no longer had to ask myself that question.”

Bold artistic scene

Marc Wilkins discovered the city of kyiv in 2006 while filming an ad. In his words, he fell in love with Ukrainian society, he was attracted by a bold, inspired and finally liberated art scene. “In comparison, Berlin or Zurich seemed very tame to me.” In 2016, he decided to settle there and, three years later, he met the woman who would become his wife. Today, when he talks about the Ukrainian people, he says “we”. “We are not fighting for Zelensky. We are fighting to defend this country that we have built, this country in which our culture exists. As a creator, I could go elsewhere, continue my work in Lyon, Lausanne or Copenhagen. But that wouldn’t be possible because I draw my inspiration from this land.”

He remembers a time when the Ukrainian music market was three-quarters made up of Russian songs. He estimates that, since the start of the war, this proportion has fallen to around 10% and that the public has turned to music that is a little more introspective, a little darker. On his website, Marc Wilkins posted a video presentation of this documentary that he is currently producing. In less than three minutes, we discover the members of Fusion Jam, a community of artists more than a group in the somewhat rigid sense of the term.

Play harder than the bombs

Regularly, these musicians meet by the dozen in a room where, following a draw, seven people are designated to form an ephemeral orchestra which will improvise for seven minutes. And when this mini-concert ends, we organize another casting and another musical experience. To the random and blind mobilization of armed troops, Fusion Jam responds with a musical conscription and offers another idea of ​​arbitrariness. By creating these one-night compositions, the members of this collective show how a dialogue – musical, in this case – makes it possible to respond to the unexpected by bringing together people who do not know each other, to combine their forces. It’s about building together, then rebuilding again and again. It’s about holding on despite the din of sirens and explosions which, some evenings, threaten the party at the same time as giving it its reason for being.

It’s about playing louder than the bombs, as the title of this documentary confirms: “Louder Than Bombs”. By continuing this work, Marc Wilkins is also engaged in a standoff. “To date, we have no financial partner or broadcaster. Work started a year ago and I shot about 20% of the images for what the film will be, notably thanks to a crowdfunding campaign. This is not the story of recording an album, it is not about telling the story of a tour, from the first date to the last. So there is no already written ending to this story. This documentary shows how people try to survive war. I hope that one day it will be understood that the war is over and it will be my last day of filming. While waiting for this moment, I am continuing my work as a director and fundraiser. Because if I wait for someone, in some administration in Switzerland, to agree to finance this film, some of the protagonists of the story may be dead.

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