GRANTEE
The Search for Fallen Ukrainian Soldiers and the Journey Home is a 40-minute cinema vérité-style documentary that follows the harrowing yet dignified process of recovering the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers killed in action. Journalists from Ukrainian Witness join the volunteer search group Platzdarm as they comb through former battlefields—not with weapons, but with shovels and body bags—to find those who never made it home. The film traces each step: from the emotional toll of the search, to DNA identification in a cold Dnipro laboratory, to the final journey “on the shield”—the ritual return of the fallen to their families, villages, and graves. There is no narration, only the voices of those who search—and the silence of those who have been found. This is not just a story of death—it is a story of remembrance, resistance, and the unbreakable bond between a country and its defenders.