"Holy War: How religion justifies killing."
Holy War examines religion as an instrument of political power, set within the divide between the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Moscow Patriarchate. Told through digital collage and rooted in Ukrainian folklore, the film builds its own coded visual language: the Tree of Life represents the Ukrainian church and its people's roots, the black tree its hostile counterpart, and the raven the Russian priests who seek to divide them.
The story follows a mother and son, drawing on real accounts of women who lost children to war and found no solace within the Moscow Patriarchate church that had baptised them. Structured in four parts — baptism, departure, death, and the search for a new spiritual refuge — the film traces her shift from one church to another, echoing the Virgin Mary and Christ. Red and black, drawn from traditional Ukrainian embroidery, hold the film's central tension: life and death, sorrow and resilience, side by side.