27/01/2023 - Roman Liubyi’s documentary tells the story of how Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 crashed to earth in the Donetsk region in 2014, with 298 lives lost

Roman Liubyi’s Sundance-screened doc Iron Butterflies [+see also:
trailer
interview: Roman Liubyi
film profile] begins with archival footage of the construction of Russian BUK anti-aircraft systems. These videos set the tone for the entire film, which is full of Russian propaganda. It was with the help of such an anti-aircraft gun that Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was shot down in the summer of 2014 near Donetsk. And if Marina Er Gobach’s Klondike [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Maryna Er Gorbach
film profile] tells us about the consequences of this plane crash for one Ukrainian family, then in Liubyi’s film, the story is examined from a slightly different angle. This is an investigative montage film, created from numerous internet stories and archival materials, and sets out to explain why this tragedy took place.

The Boeing 777 crash occurred on 17 July 2014, at 16:20 local time. The airliner, making flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was hit by a rocket, as established by the investigation. None of the 298 people on board the plane survived. Investigators were sure that the BUK that fired at the Boeing had entered Ukrainian territory from the 53rd Air Defence Brigade of the Russian Federation, based near Kursk, and that, shortly after the tragedy, it was transported back across the border to Russian territory. The investigation also concludes that none of the defendants personally took part in the launch of the rocket, but they “jointly led the plan to destroy the aircraft”. All of the accused have been put on the international most-wanted list. The prosecutor's office has asked for a life sentence for them, and the verdict was announced on 17 November 2022 in The Hague.

All of these events are in the film by Liubyi, an experienced documentarian from Ukrainian film group Babylon‘13, who previously made his debut with War Note [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]. That was a story edited together from personal videos of Ukrainian fighters who had been struggling against the forces of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic since 2014. The film truthfully chronicled Ukrainian soldiers’ life in the trenches. Iron Butterflies continues the military theme, and with this film, Liubyi emphasises the fact that the war between Russia and Ukraine began not in 2022, but in 2014, focusing on one of the biggest Russian war crimes that led to international losses.

Liubyi uses not only a documentary-chronicle style, but also theatrical elements, making the film format even more hybrid. There is a scene where a line of the victims’ relatives stretches out across an entire field towards the downed airliner. The director filmed this sequence with the help of Ukrainian actors and British choreographer Bridget Fiske.

The end of the film is deeply symbolic, as it shows the evacuation of Ukrainians across the Irpin bridge in March 2022. Liubyi spent one month in this place trying to get his family out. The irony is that the director spent his childhood years here, and even sprayed graffiti on this very bridge with his own hands.

Iron Butterflies spans the period from 2014-2022, up to the beginning of the full-scale war that Russia is waging against Ukraine, and it stands in solidarity with all those who have lost loved ones in this war. The term “iron butterflies” refers to the exact type of shrapnel that killed the 298 people on board MH17, and those individuals will remain forever in our memory through this infinitely truthful and profound documentary.

Iron Butterflies was produced by Ukraine’s Babylon’13 and Germany’s TRIMAFILM.