Tie2/Svitlana Kostrykina
Mantas Narkevičius is a self-taught documentary filmmaker and director from Vilnius, Lithuania. Currently he is working on a second season of his documentary TV-series “N16” about Lithuanian teenagers, which premiered on LRTU [a part of Lithuanian National Television programming]. Last April Mantas went to Ukraine together with photographer Denis Vėjas, where he filmed documentary stories about animals during the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine.
“War Dogs” [the name of the project] consists of three separate short stories. The first one tells the story about Borodyanka municipal dog shelter on the outskirts of Kyiv and the negligence of its director during the first days of war, which led to the deaths of more than a hundred animals.
The second story takes the viewers to Irpin and follows Oleksii Surovtsev, a charismatic Ukrainian actor and war-time volunteer, who has dedicated himself to rescuing pets from war-hit regions.
The third documentary shows life in an occupied zoo in Demydiv – both from the perspective of the animals and the zoo staff as well.
All the movies were filmed and edited by Mantas himself, with some help by a Ukrainian director and editor Anna Honcharova.
In our interview Mantas shares with us what was left behind the scenes.
Why did you decide to go to Ukraine?
When the full-scale war started, a photographer that I know and really admire, Denis Vėjas, had just come back from Ukraine, where he took some really powerful photos of the first days of the war. He decided to come back to Vilnius and exhibit his work in the MO museum in Vilnius. During that time I was working on small videography gigs, struggling to find some interesting work that I could do for a longer time. So I wrote to Denis: “Let’s meet up, and maybe next time you’re going to Ukraine – I could join you, because I’m really looking for something meaningful to work on during this time”. We met and he shared some stories about people during the first days of war who were crossing the border to get to safer places with animals, both their own pets and stray or abandoned ones. There were all sorts of people, some walking on foot with maybe 20 dog leashes in their hands, some driving their fancy cars with purebred animals inside as cargo. Some people actually were using the start of the war as a business opportunity and were collecting purebred dogs which could then be sold for €2000, delivering them to rich people in Poland, Germany and other European countries. So at the start it was chaos, complete chaos. Denis told me: I want to somehow document all of this. So I said, yeah, let’s go, I have my camera ready. And that’s how we went.
Was it scary for you to go to a country which was and still is at war?
Yeah, a bit. Because five days before I went, there were the first big news about a Ukrainian journalist who was missing for a couple of days, and then he was found dead [photojournalist Maks Levin went missing near Huta-Mezhyhirska in the Kyiv Oblast on 13 March 2022, his body was found near the village on 1 April 2022, he was fatally shot twice by Russian servicemen while unarmed and wearing a press jacket]. And then, two days before we were to go, a famous documentary filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravičius was also killed. He is one of the most famous Lithuanian directors, so that was huge news across the country. When the full-scale war started, he went straight to Mariupol where he had made lots of friends while filming his documentaries throughout the years, but he didn’t get out.
So my brother was saying that this was a bad sign, an omen that I shouldn’t go. But I don’t know – I felt kind of calm and I was sure that I was doing something meaningful and purposeful and that everything would be OK. Of course, I wasn’t going there just to put myself in extreme situations on the frontline.
The funny thing is – when we were driving through Poland, the weather was very nice: sunny with some little clouds here and there. However, once we crossed the Ukrainian border, the sky turned dark and full of rainy clouds in an instant. And for a moment I was like “Oh my God, where did I just come to?” So there was a bit of anxiety in the beginning, but then you compose yourself and realize that you aren’t here for vacation or some adventure seeking, but you’re here to work and so you focus on that work and that’s kind of it.
Was it difficult to interview people you were speaking to?
On the one hand, some people were skeptical of me [of us] at the beginning because they were afraid that I was going to exploit them and their situation or the situation of animals, etc. But when you start talking to people, they just talk and talk and talk and it seems like they can talk for hours, so at some point you become less a filmmaker-journalist and more a psychotherapist as far as the people you interview are concerned. And because there’s a war, because most folks probably have lost someone in their family, lost their home and livelihood and so on, it’s very hard to interrupt them and say “Okay, but I only want to hear about this thing and then we have to leave”. So at the beginning we would stay longer than we planned, turn off the camera and just let the people talk because they were desperate to be heard by someone. So yeah, a lot of people open up in this way. Which says a lot, because Eastern Europeans, and I know, because I am one, Eastern Europeans are not easy to open up.
What surprised you the most in Kyiv?
I probably won’t be very original, but I think the thing that stuck with me the most is that Kyiv is basically Vilnius, just bigger – a bigger version of Vilnius. And it wasn’t surprising or shocking, just kind of weird to see that people are still living their normal lives: bars are open, clubs are open, people are going out and stuff, especially young people. And then you drive about 7 kilometers from the city center and see parts of destroyed Russian tanks just sitting on the road. Then you drive just a bit farther and start seeing completely destroyed urban areas.
Just before I went to Ukraine, I read most of the articles they had just released at the time about the Bucha and Irpin atrocities, which were illustrated with pictures of old wooden houses from those areas. So it seemed like Irpin was an old village. But when you get there – it’s actually a posh neighborhood, a great place to live for well-to-do families; Irpin is full of private houses and new apartment buildings, parks, shopping centers… So I would say I didn’t expect to see something that I usually see every day all around me, in the city I live in, being completely and utterly destroyed like that.
And some of the apartments that we went to – they still had food on lunch plates because people, even whole families, had to leave so quickly. They just packed everything and left. So once you go inside, you realize that time stopped there. Just like that. Strange feeling.
In your opinion, what is the biggest thing that people in other countries do not realize about the war?
Again, I probably won’t be original, but the idea that the war is closer than you think. All of us here in Vilnius could be in a similar situation tomorrow. People who are sitting here in this cafe with us today, could be shoveling fortifications or searching for bodies under the rubble tomorrow. Some of us may be standing here with guns as part of Territorial Defense Forces. What’s happening in Ukraine is closer than we think and I believe that Ukraine should be supported as much as possible, because it’s one of the biggest countries in Europe, and it’s so strange to see a way of life that I’m so familiar with being completely destroyed for no good reason. It’s strange to say it, but it all could easily happen here in Vilnius. I don’t want that to happen here, so that was one of the reasons I went to Ukraine – to become a part of change for the better and, hopefully, to make people understand a bit better all the worries about the war.
While filming movies about fates of the animals during the full-scale war, what did you see from their perspective?
First of all, I have a dog myself and he is my best friend. I’ve been around dogs in one way or another for most of my life. I have also met a lot of people who have their own pets, people who work with animals – breeders, volunteers in shelters or managers of pet food businesses. And I would say that different people have a very different set of morals regarding the animals. A lot of the time I have seen people treating their animals like accessories. Let’s just say that most people don’t know how to take care of their own lives, let alone of someone else’s. Dogs are incredibly intelligent creatures, more intelligent than most people and therefore they require a lot of physical and emotional attention. But a lot of people have no idea about this, they don’t know how to handle their pets, how to make a strong bond with them or how to connect with the environment in general. I mean, we all love cute puppy videos on our Instagram feed. But having a pet – there’s so much more to it.
And it’s not only about the war. For example – I am a member of this Facebook group called “Akitas in Lithuania”, because my dog is an Akita. These dogs are very independent, very intelligent, incredibly wise creatures, and they never let anyone boss them around. You have to really work for years to make that special connection with them, so they can trust you and accept you as their friend and a leader of their pack. But people don’t know that stuff. They just get them because Akitas are beautiful. And then after one-and-a-half or two years, when they become big, strong dogs, with knife-like teeth and can actually bite your hand off, people realize “Oh my god, I can’t deal with this, my dog is not a cute puppy anymore, what happened?”. And therefore every month I see posts in this Facebook group saying “I don’t know what to do, I want to put my dog down or maybe someone could just take him off my hands”. That’s sad. And most of the time the problem doesn’t lie with the animals, but with the people who take them – you just have to think about it for a bit before making such a decision.
And returning to Ukraine – one of the things that I saw was that there were too many abandoned pets. Especially in a place like Irpin, too many pets were left to fend for themselves: dogs in posh private houses and apartment buildings filled with abandoned dogs, cats, turtles and other creatures inside. It’s kind of sad. And I understand there’s war and your family and your own well-being becomes the priority in such circumstances, but… How can I describe it? Being responsible is very hard. And when shit hits the fan and your back is against the wall, a lot of people forget their responsibilities. Maybe if you have five huge dogs, you cannot take them with you and then you decide to leave them with tears in your eyes and then ask someone who stays behind to take care of what essentially is a part of your family. But a lot of people just left their little cats or turtles behind… I mean, why couldn’t you take your turtle with you?
In your opinion, how can people from Lithuania help animals in Ukraine?
Well, first of all, before starting to help Ukrainian cats and dogs, we could take better care of animals right here. Our pet shelters are full of animals and I believe that is the case for a lot of other countries as well. So if you’re thinking about getting a pet, you could consider an option of getting one from a pet shelter. There’s also a pet shelter in Alytus which, I believe, has a lot of animals that have been rescued from the war-hit regions in Ukraine. So a few people have come and taken them as their pets, but still – there are many animals who have been living in the shelter for more than a year already. And they will probably stay there for the rest of their days, because getting an animal from Ukraine is less cool now than it was at the beginning of the war. It’s too much responsibility to take care of a pet affected by war and I kind of understand this though, because these pets might never fully recover mentally or physically. So it’s a lot to ask for someone to dedicate their time and energy every day to take care of such a pet. Some people do it and it becomes their life purpose and some people stay away from it. But like I said, if you’re considering getting a pet, think about the animals from the shelters, because they’re just as interesting, loving and wise, and the fact that they’re war refugees doesn’t define them as creatures. Other than that – support Ukraine and support the animal protection services and organizations that work there. People risk their lives every day for others, be it people or animals.
You’ve said that your dog Renzo is your best friend. How did he come into your life?
How did Renzo come into my life? A few years ago I was studying law and finishing university, and it was a pretty hard time emotionally for me. First, I’ve lost some people who were very close to me. Also, even though I was not only studying law, but also working at a law firm at the time, I started feeling less and less at home with law. And so after I graduated, I had a big emotional breakdown and had to take some time away to recover from everything that had happened in those past two years. And it was exactly then that our family decided to get a dog, because everyone was going through a difficult period in different ways and we felt that it was the right time to get one [our last dog passed away a few years prior].
We went to look at a couple of dogs our family friends suggested, but once I saw Renzo – it was a bond at first sight. He could barely walk, but had a very adventurous soul and wanted to follow me around and take part in everything I was doing. So we got him, and then for the next two years while I was still reconnecting with myself and the world around me, I was spending most of my time with Renzo every single day, recovering mentally and bit by bit we became inseparable. I raised him – and he raised me.
