WHEN:

Wednesday, 7 November 2018, 7pm

WHERE:

Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London, W2 1QJ

Admission:

£12.50 (£10 con). Book here

Run Time: 1 hr 29 mins

Invisible Battalion consists of six stories of servicewomen told by three Ukrainian film directors: Iryna Tsilyk, Svitlana Lischynska and Alina Gorlova. The film’s protagonists are different by their life experience, age, military and civil professions, but all of them united by this war. 

In 2016 a sociological survey on the war revealed a number of problems: Ukrainian legislation didn’t allow women to be assigned to combat positions, so they were enlisted as cooks, seamstresses, cleaners, accountants etc. while taking part in military combat operations as snipers, grenade launcher operators, reconnaissance soldiers, artillerists etc. This was done on semi-legal grounds. Thus, the majority of women who were at Donbas war were not enlisted officially and subsequently had no access to social or military benefits, military awards, social status, or career opportunities in the Armed Forces. The contribution of women to the defence of the country was and still is invisible to society. A powerful advocacy campaign for gender equality in the Armed Forces of Ukraine was initiated and thus the film was born.

Speakers

Maria Berlinska (producer) is a founder of the Ukrainian Centre for Aerial Reconnaissance in Kyiv and has been volunteering for the Ukrainian Army since the start of the conflict (both by flying drones at the frontline and training others to operate drones in Kyiv). In addition, Maria set up an Institute for Gender Programmes and initiated a sociological study about women who serve in the ongoing war (you can find their report here: http://www.uwf.org.ua/en/project_activities/invisible_batallion).

Olesya Khromeychuk teaches Modern European History at King’s College London and researches the participation and representation of women in military formations during the Second World War and in the ongoing conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine. She is the author of ‘Undetermined’ Ukrainians. Post-War Narratives of the Waffen SS ‘Galicia’ Division (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013)

Trailer: