A woman in Kherson navigates the horrors and absurdities of daily life during the initial weeks of the Russian war in Ukraine. A short film adapted from Olena Astasieva’s personal accounts from the front lines.
“WE’RE BEING BOMBED. I HEAR THE SOUND OF SHELLS OUTSIDE THE WINDOW … I GOOGLE WHAT TO DO.”
DICTIONARY OF EMOTIONS IN A TIME OF WAR
directed by Leah Loftin | written by Olena Astasieva | translated by John Freedman
ABOUT THE FILM
The film is anchored by the first-person narration of Olena Astasieva’s wartime accounts, portrayed in a series of expressionistic vignettes that incorporate illustration and animation, studio art installations, archival footage, contemporary war photography, and fragmented recreations of narrative scenes. Each vignette is entitled by a word that describes an emotional and personal situation experienced since the onset of the war: Fear, Hunger, Love, Cleaning, Guilt, and beyond. The film also features dispatches from friends from both Ukraine and Russia. Dictionary of Emotions provides a vividly nuanced portrait of daily life in a time of war in the present day through a visceral, devastating, and urgent first-person account that illuminates the horrors and absurdities of war.
This film is an excerpt from part one of a two-part play written by Olena Astastieva, commissioned in March 2022 from Philip Arnoult’s Center for International Theater Development (CITD) for the Ukrainian Hope Initiative. A project of the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings, the initiative aims to bring light to the horrors of Putin’s war on Ukraine.
“A remarkable piece of filmmaking … Dictionary of Emotions uses cinema’s language to bring a different approach to the topic of war.”
- Pedro Lima, SHORTSTICK FILMS
The play Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War was commissioned in February 2022 by a grant from Philip Arnoult’s Center for International Theater Development (US) as an initiative for Ukrainian playwrights to bring light to the horrors of Putin’s war on Ukraine. Olena Astasieva’s text was translated from the Russian by John Freedman.
The full version of Dictionary of Emotions is written in two parts: Part One describes experiences during the initial onset of the war, and Part Two illustrates the experience of exile and an escalated war scenario over the following months. For this short film, Part One is portrayed.
Leah Loftin (director and producer of Dictionary of Emotions) is an actress in NYC, and was originally asked to perform the play version as part of a series of live theatrical staged readings in NYC to raise funds in support of Ukrainian refugees. Loftin reached out to Olena Astasieva, who is currently in exile, and was granted permission to adapt the testimonials for the screen.
ABOUT THE WRITER
OLENA ASTASIEVA
Ukrainian playwright and writer of Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War
Olena Astasieva was born in 1973 in Kherson, Ukraine, and is currently in exile as a result of the war. Elena studied at the Kiev Institute of Culture, worked as a librarian, bookseller and copywriter. She wrote short stories and plays that were shortlisted several times for the Ukrainian festival “The Week of Current Plays” and performed in theaters in Kherson and Kyiv. A founding member of Theater of Playwrights in Kyiv, her piece Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War has been performed over 80 times in cities across the globe and was named among the “50 Best Books of 2023” by The Telegraph.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
LEAH LOFTIN
Leah Loftin is an American actor and filmmaker whose work was named “fearless” by The New York Times.
She was recently named an “Emerging Director to Discover” by SHOOT Magazine, as part of the New Directors Showcase. Leah’s experimental film work was a recent finalist for the 2022 Aesthetica Art Prize, and she was recently awarded the silver medal at the 1.4 Awards for Brilliant Filmmaking (UK).
Her films often integrate physical performance with a vividly stylized visual language drawn from a background in international avant-garde theatre. Since directing her first short film in 2020, her films have premiered at OSCAR- and BAFTA-qualifying film festivals including DOC NYC, Aesthetica, Ann Arbor, FLICKERS’ Rhode Island, Shorts on Tap London, Berlin Commercial, New Filmmakers New York at Anthology Film Archives, among many others, garnering awards in Berlin, Austin, Bucharest, and Toronto.
A SAG-AFTRA/AEA actress, Loftin formally trained with the Moscow Art Theatre (MXAT), she was selected for an extended performance residency in Moscow with the acclaimed SounDrama theatre company. On television, she recently guest starred on THE BLACKLIST and NEW AMSTERDAM, and will be seen next in THE GREEN VEIL, starring John Leguizamo. Her film roles began in the Oscar-winning MONSTER’S BALL, and she has appeared in award-winning independent films that have screened across the globe. With a deep history creating and performing movement-based theatre of new and classical plays, Loftin has performed Off-Broadway and throughout the US, Canada, and Eastern Europe.
A proud native Texan, Leah was born and raised in the small town of Crosby, Texas. leahloftin.com
DICTIONARY OF EMOTIONS IN A TIME OF WAR
2023 | USA
ENGLISH, UKRAINIAN, RUSSIAN
directed and produced BY LEAH LOFTIN
written by OLENA ASTASIEVA
narrated by LEAH LOFTIN
featuring performances by ANDY ENGLISH, NICOLE KONTOLEFA, LEAH LOFTIN, NATALYA SUKHONOS, AND LEAH WALSH
translated by JOHN FREEDMAN
illustration and animation by AURA LEWIS
intro animation sequence by BRIDGET JOHNSON
editing and cinematography by LEAH LOFTIN
music by NATHAN HALPERN + CHRIS RUGGIERO
color by JEROME THELIA
CONTACT
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GOOD DOCS | outreach@gooddocs.net
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LLKENT PR | pr@llkentpr.com
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dictionaryofemotions@gmail.com