СЛІДИ
Ukraine, Poland
2026 | 85 min. | Documentary

TRACES follows Ukrainian women who, after surviving conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) and torture during Russia's war, refuse to remain silent. At its center is Iryna Dovhan, a former captive turned activist and head of SEMA Ukraine, who documents the testimonies of survivors across de-occupied territories. Through her guidance, the film presents a collective portrait of trauma, resilience, and hope, showing how survivors transform pain into power.

The film highlights how survivors, through mutual support and collective action, reclaim agency, challenge stigma, and insist on justice. Personal experiences shared by women showcase a broader strategy of war: sexual violence is used deliberately as a weapon to intimidate, destabilize, assert control over occupied territories, and break Ukrainians as a nation. Both women and men, including Ukrainian POWs, have been targeted by the Russian forces, highlighting the systematic nature of these crimes and their long-lasting impact on individuals and communities.

The title TRACES captures this multilayered impact from the visible destruction of lives and communities to the invisible marks left on the human psyche: physical, psychological, and social. More than a record of war crimes, the film is a testament to solidarity and agency — survivors reclaim their voices, challenge stigma, and insist on justice.

By bearing witness and refusing to remain silent, these women, guided by Iryna, create a powerful movement that illuminates the stakes of the ongoing war and asserts the vital importance of memory, accountability, and social transformation.

Directed by: Alisa Kovalenko, Marysia Nikitiuk
Written by: Alisa Kovalenko
Produced by: Olha Bregman, Natalia Libet, Violetta Kamińska, Izabela Wójcik, Dariusz Jabłoński
Cinematography: Alisa Kovalenko
Editing: Alisa Kovalenko, Nikon Romanchenko, Milenia Fiedler
Original Score: Wojciech Frycz
Sound: Mariia Nesterenko, Maciej Amilkiewicz, Mateusz Hulbój
Cast: Iryna Dovhan, Tetiana Vasylenko, Liudmyla Mymrykova, Galyna Tyshchenko, Olha Cherniak

Statement of the director:
The theme of TRACES resonates deeply with me, at the core of my own being, as it lifts the veil on conflict-related sexual violence – an experience I have lived through myself. This film speaks about a community to which I belong and with which I maintain profoundly strong ties.
For me, however, TRACES is not only about breaking the silence around these crimes. It is also about changing the narrative around those who survive them, moving away from the image of the invisible victim towards survivors as people with agency and expertise, who can become advocates and drivers of change. They are not only witnesses to the past; they can help shape the future. This is inseparable from survivor-centred justice: survivors should not only be asked to testify, but should have a meaningful role in shaping justice itself.
In the spring of 2014, I survived Russian captivity and sexual violence in Donbas. As a young filmmaker after the Maidan revolution, I went to document the events unfolding in eastern Ukraine. After two weeks of filming in the Donetsk region, then partially controlled by Russian and pro-Russian forces, I was captured, interrogated and subjected to sexual violence by a Russian counterintelligence officer.
After four days of captivity, he released me, saying: “You should thank me for the fact that you weren’t executed.” For almost two years, I remained silent. In 2016, I finally testified before the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, becoming one of the first women in Ukraine to speak publicly about sexual violence connected to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
I was far from being the only one. A wall of silence and stigma surrounded those who had lived through this experience, and for years conflict-related sexual violence was barely discussed in Ukraine.
In 2019, Iryna Dovhan, a civilian from Donbas who had survived captivity, torture and sexual violence in occupied Donetsk, invited me to the first gathering of Ukrainian women with similar experiences. It was a defining moment. I understood how individual experiences could become a source of collective strength and action, and I joined this community, which later became SEMA Ukraine.
From our first meetings, we discussed making a documentary together – to preserve memory, break the silence and advocate for justice. But I was afraid that making such a film would reopen wounds I was not ready to confront.
Then, on 24 February 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As territories were occupied and later liberated, more testimonies of sexual violence, torture and captivity emerged. Together with our survivor community, we began supporting newly affected women and advocating for their rights. Gradually, I understood that the film could become part of this collective work.
In 2023, within our survivor community, we made a collective decision to begin making the documentary. Iryna had already begun documenting testimonies of war crimes following the liberation of the Kyiv region. I joined her with my camera, and together we travelled to the Kherson region after its liberation, where our work continued.
At first, it was extremely difficult. I listened to hours of testimonies about torture, violence and captivity. But I was not simply observing these women from behind the camera. Together with Iryna and our survivor community, we began supporting newly affected women. With time, some became part of this same collective work: helping others, documenting crimes, speaking publicly and fighting for justice. The women carried the traces of what had happened to them, but they were not defined by those traces.
This also shaped the cinematic language of the film. For me, it was a constant search for balance: between bearing witness to the crimes and finding a delicate, metaphorical language that could also hold human beauty, tenderness and resistance. Nature became an important part of this language – a recurring image of renewal that helped us trace a delicate arc through the film, from trauma towards recovery. I wanted to address the violence without allowing it to overshadow the women themselves, always keeping the human being at the centre. Ultimately, the film is about the power of human dignity to confront and overcome evil.
TRACES is not simply a film about sexual violence or trauma. It is a film about what remains after violence, and what can grow from those traces.
I was not entering this story as an outside filmmaker. With Iryna, I already shared years of advocacy, trust and struggle; with the other women, these relationships grew through filmmaking, intertwined with the work of our survivor community. The boundaries between filming, supporting one another and acting together were often fluid. In this sense, TRACES is a story told from within, rooted in a principle that has guided our community: “Nothing about us without us.”
In 2025, I joined SEMA Global, an international network of survivors of wartime sexual violence. Meeting survivor-led organisations from other countries made me understand that the experience of Ukrainian women is part of a larger global movement for dignity and justice.
Making TRACES also changed me. I began the film afraid that returning to this experience would reopen my own wounds. Instead, witnessing the transformation of the women around me became part of my own healing. Their movement from silence towards voice and from isolation towards collective action reflected my own journey.
This is where the personal, cinematic and political dimensions of the film meet for me. Changing the narrative is not simply a question of representation. It is connected to who is recognised as having agency, whose knowledge matters, and who has the right to participate in shaping justice. Survivors should not enter the room only when their testimony is needed. They should remain in the room when justice itself is being shaped.
TRACES grew out of this collective journey. I hope it carries something of that transformation with it: from silence to voice, from victimhood to agency, and from individual trauma to collective action.

Production:
2Brave Productions
https://2braveproductions.com/

World Sales:
Stranger Films Sales
https://www.strangerfilmssales.com

Press/social media agency:
Alphapanda GmbH
https://www.alphapanda.com