These Ukrainian Children Shelter Apart From Abusive Parents

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: And our next guest, who has documented life in eastern Ukraine for years. Award-winning director Simon Lereng Wilmont’s latest documentary, “A House Made of Splinters” has received critical acclaim. He profiles Ukrainian children living in a halfway house after their parents were no longer able to care for them. It premiered just weeks before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Simon joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the process of making this powerful and raw documentary.

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HARI SREENIVASAN, CORRESPONDENT: Bianna, thanks. Simon Wilmont, thanks so much for joining us. First, for people who have not yet seen the film, tell us a little bit about what it is about.

SIMON LERENG WILMONT, DIRECTOR, “A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS”: “A House Made of Splinters” is a documentary film about a very special — kind of like, halfway house for kids whose parents are not able longer to take care of them along the northern parts of the front line in 2020 in Eastern Ukraine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Good morning, little ones. Good morning, I came to wake you up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Mrs. Irina.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking in a foreign language).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking in a foreign language).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I’m telling you straight out, only our stepdad, Vanya, and —

SREENIVASAN: You know, there were so many different stories in the past several months coming out about Ukraine. And this was kind of the first time I’d ever thought about the fact that there are children displaced inside the country for otherwise a normal non-war reasons. What were some of the reasons that you saw him repeatedly of why these children were in this halfway house?

WILMONT: Well, mostly, it was due to their parents struggling with substance abuse of various kind. Most of them alcohol, there might also be domestic abuse, but there’s also PTSD running in the families or even trauma from when the war fled up in 2015. So, it’s a small community that’s kind of like where the social issues that were existing is kind of like spiraling out of control. Also, because they’ve had a war going on for so long in their backyard.

SREENIVASAN: So, as you’re pointing out there that, really, since 2015, there are so many parents that have been displaced, unemployed, traumatized. All kinds of different reasons why they might turn to substance abuse to try to, I don’t know, medicate themselves. That there is huge population of children that are coming in or, I guess, being shipped off to orphanages.

WILMONT: Yes, it’s true. Margarita and Olga, the two caregivers of this shelter they told me, you know, that a few years ago, the problem they felt like they had a — they could handle this. But in the last couple of years, it has been almost spiraling out of control. And for each one of these kids that I saw at the shelter, they could easily put in 10 more but there is no space for them.

SREENIVASAN: There is really poignant moments where you’re, kind of, the fly on the wall and you’re watching friendships blossom and end. And literally from the minute a young girl is asking if she wants to be her best friend, to the moment where one of them goes off and the other one is still there. You empathized with each of these characters, so to speak, because it’s their real lives. I wondered how it was for you to watch that and what happened to those young people?

WILMONT: You know, I have two kids roughly the same age. So, obviously, it’s like a very sorrowful experience watching so raw emotional scenes like this play out in front of my eyes. But the caregivers also told me was that in situations like this, it’s so important when the kids are faced with grief and sadness and that I, as an adult, even though I might be crying inside, I should always try to assume some kind of stable comfort and be like a rock that they can lean on. And then I can hide my own feelings and take care of them later because in that moment, it is the kids that it’s all about.

SREENIVASAN: Tell me a little bit about the young boy that you profiled, because he is, sort of, an interesting character that, as a viewer, he’s complicated. Tell me about him.

WILMONT: Yes, when I first saw Collia (ph), who’s 13 years old, he was like — he’s like on a path to jail. You know, he was shoplifting, stealing, he was smoking cigarettes, and he was trying to climb the hierarchy of the older boys at the shelter, even doing tattoos and stuff. But at the same time, as him being really good at that world, I also noticed that he was so kind and he was so gentle with his two younger siblings, almost like a father figure for them, even though he was only 13. And that, you know, contrast in character I found was immensely fascinating.

SREENIVASAN: There’s also this other dimension, you have a scene where their mother comes and you just remember that this is just still a little boy. I mean, even though you are showing us scenes of how he is taking responsibility for his siblings, there is this really touching emotional moment where he is just bearing his head into the neck of his mom.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Come here.

COLLIA (PH): What?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are those cuts? Did you do it yourself? Never do it again. I need you. I couldn’t live without you. I’d miss you.

WILMONT: Yes, it was an amazing moment also to see because until that point, he had mostly been the tough guy. And he was, you know, wise beyond his years. He was used to taking care of himself and his siblings when his mom and his various stepdads wasn’t around or weren’t able to. So, he had like, a very strong facade. And in this moment, she discovers that he had been harming himself a little bit as a cry for attention, probably. And when she confronts him with that, that’s where his barrier breaks down because all of a sudden, she is a mom to him. She is acting as a mom is supposed to do. And it think that’s actually what broke his shell down in that moment.

SREENIVASAN: There is a scene where Collia (ph) is greeting to his little siblings. And it’s “The Scorpion and the Frog”.

COLLIA (PH) (through translator): You said you wouldn’t sting me. Now, we’ll both die. Why did you do it? The scorpion replied, “It’s my nature.” The end. What did you learn from the fable?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking in a foreign language).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in a foreign language).

WILMONT: Yes, that’s his life. That until now, you know, the only one Collia (ph) has told that he can trust is himself, and that’s his credo in life. And hopefully, you know, this is something that the caregivers I know have been working on changing that while he was at the shelter. But also now, I hope that his new foster family will also begin to work with Collia (ph) and show him that the good people — if you surround yourself with good people, those are the ones that you can trust actually.

SREENIVASAN: What happened to him after the film? We see at the end of the film that he’s shifted off —

WILMONT: Yes.

SREENIVASAN: — to an orphanage and his siblings are left behind. What happened to him and his siblings?

WILMONT: His siblings, all four of them, we only see two in the film, but all four of them were adopted by family, a local family. But they didn’t have room for Collia (ph), so he was not adopted. He was sent to a state orphanage. But luckily, as — normally, you know, the foster family sever any family ties or connections but because of the film, they actually allowed Collia (ph) to keep in contact with his siblings while he was at the orphanage. It was really great because he was also very close to the orphanage. But as of the 24th, he was put on a train very early on and driven westward, and later into Europe, actually, on a temporary orphanage, and that broke the contact with the foster family. Now, just — I think, maybe one and a half month ago, Collia (ph) was adopted and he’s back in Kyiv with a seemingly really good and resourceful family. And they’ve promised me hand over heart that they will do whatever they can to reestablish that contact with his lost siblings.

SREENIVASAN: Wow. Tell me also a little bit about the young girl. When she sits down, there’s this really poignant scene between her and the woman who may become her foster mom.

WILMONT: Yes.

SREENIVASAN: That entire exchange, it’s — you just — you’re watching what could be a pivotal moment in this young girl’s life.

WILMONT: Yes. She is taken to see this lady as — it’s part of a longer process that you don’t see all of the process play out in this film, but it’s the first step in a very long process of meetings between both a potential foster mom and then Sasha, the young girl, who was only 10 at that time in her life. And it’s a simple scene. You know, they were sitting in opposite each other, you know, both eyeing at each other but also trying to find some common things to talk about. And in between the scenes, you can — between the words that they exchange, you can also feel that there is a whole other story going on. You know, people meeting for the first time, do we like each other? Don’t we like each other? How is our relationship going to be?

SREENIVASAN: Yes. And how was it to try to win the trust of these children who are already in a place that’s — I can’t imagine what it’s like for a child to be separated from their families and also in the context of knowing that there’s a war, and not knowing where they’re going to be in a couple weeks or a couple of months.

WILMONT: Well, I do my own cinematography. And actually, just coming into the shelter, just kind of almost like a one-man band. I think it’s — it was actually relatively easy to get in touch with the kids. They were curious as to who I were and what I was doing there. And to win that trust, I think it’s more about, you know, I was spending a lot of time, keeping, reminding them that if there is something you do not want me to film, just, you know, put up your hand, say stop, or simply just walk away. And in those incidences where they actually did that, obviously I would honor my word and I would stop filming. And overtime, that creates that mutual trust that’s so important for when the more raw emotional moments happens then all of a sudden, I am not just (INAUDIBLE). I’m, you know, I’m Simon. And I’m also one that they can go over and they can — they have a shoulder to cry on if they want to, or we can take a walk talking, or even in silence. And so, through time, I think we developed a mutual relationship based on trust.

SREENIVASAN: Here are these wonderful kids that are in this horrible situation. How do you maintain — I don’t know, what it is. I guess some sort of distance where you are watching them experience this life but at the same time, they’re probably looking at you as a stable figure that’s coming back every day.

WILMONT: Yes, you know, we were spending a lot of time discussing and being taught by the caregivers of the shelter on how to be in our involvement with the kids. What kind of boundaries it was necessary for us to make clear. And you know, me not adopting them was one of them that we were, very early on, would be introducing. But even more importantly, I think, you know, these kids, they really need some — they missed somebody to really see them. And my Ukrainian crew and I, we were like three people all in all, obviously, when this filming ends, it’s — our involvement that does not end. And we have been trying, you know, to — we have been having a psychological program where we’ve hired two psychologists, child psychologists with trauma as a specialty to be available for the kids from when we stopped filming and forever onwards for the kids while — that were at the shelter. While we were there to see if a pilot program like that could actually be really helpful in the future to inspire maybe the state to do something similar. And we’ve had really, really good results, actually.

SREENIVASAN: I wonder, as a filmmaker, why you chose not to use the war as part of the storyline or as a — almost like character. Because what we’re seeing is literally a side of Ukraine that we haven’t been exposed to for the past year. But why keep the war out of it even though it’s kind of started while you’re doing this?

WILMONT: I wanted to be truthful and honest in regards to the child’s point of view. You know, if they don’t see the war, then we don’t see the war either. And I felt, in a lot of ways also, that even though, you know, we only hear a couple of explosions once or twice in the film in the distance, that’s what the war is for these kids at this point in time or that point in time. Obviously, now everything has changed. But it — no matter what, I still feel that the war, in so many ways, are seeping in through the cracks in everything in this society. And you feel that it’s there even though, you know, you don’t see it so much.

SREENIVASAN: Here we are in the second year of this war now, what do we know about the status of the children that you filmed in that shelter?

WILMONT: Yes, Lysychansk, where the shelter is — was located is one of the most heavily contested cities, almost up there as with Mariupol or Bakhmut. So, it’s been devastated a lot. What I’ve heard, I don’t know if it is true, but the last thing I heard was that there was actually a rocket that hit down through the roof of the shelter but it didn’t explode. So, if it’s true, then there’s a rocket sticking up from the roof of the shelter, which is now in Russian controlled territory. So, it’s empty of both kids and staff.

WILMONT: Where did all those kids go?

WILMONT: They were put on a train on the morning of the 24th, on a two to three-day train trail westward which had to stop a lot of times because there was fear of rocket attacks or mortars. Maybe even, actually, as far as I understand, some hits also near the train. But eventually, luckily, they all got safely to Western Ukraine. And when Lviv also started getting hit, they were transported into a temporary orphanage in Europe.

SREENIVASAN: What do you think that the Oscar nomination has done for this topic, these children?

WILMONT: So, there is so much focus with the Oscars on the kids, but also the topic in general, which is so, you know, important in this place and time. Because I was filming in Eastern Ukraine a couple years ago, and that was like a smaller problem. But now, obviously with the new full-scale attack on Ukraine, you could be worried that this problem will spread to encompass most of Ukraine. But what I’m most proud about is that it means so much for a lot of Ukrainians that this film has actually made it this far. And it helps a lot, internally, to focus on this topic and to hopefully make, you know, families open up their homes and taking one or two or more of these kids.

SREENIVASAN: Yes, so, what can people do?

WILMONT: Yes, my assistant director and my line producer who are both Ukrainian, while we were shooting the film in the end, they decided, actually, to make an NGO that’s called the foundation, Voices of Children. And this foundation is focused solely on helping vulnerable kids that have been affected by war in various ways, both either very practical with a home or clothing, or food even, or heating. But also, with psychological help so they have somebody to talk to, for example. So, I would suggest that people want to help, a good way would be to donate to that NGO.

SREENIVASAN: Simon Lereng Wilmont, this film is called, “A House Made of Splinters”. Thanks so much for joining us.

WILMONT: Thanks for having me on the show.