EIGHTEEN MILL STREET

Sweden | 2024 | 14 min | col.

Time flows slowly and imperturbably in Eighteen Mill Street’s apartment. From their sofa, two Ukrainian artists tell stories of bombings, makeshift shelters, roadblocks, and manic controls in search of clues of potential dissidents. After the Russian invasion, they decided to flee from their country and seek refuge in Sweden for a new beginning, but covert symptoms of a deep existential distress are now surfacing: “Now I’m here and I haven’t any idea what, where I can come after this period is over. Life is a little bit stopped.” Blurred images, superimposed pictures, and colour toning alternate on the screen accompanied by rarefied, obsessive music, thus recreating the suspended, impalpable mood of the characters’ emotional space. A both political and intimate reflection on the Russia-Ukraine conflict that represents the bewilderment caused by forced exile. (s.e.c.)