Ukrainian volunteer medic’s film aims to ‘wake up the world’ to reality of war

Eastern Front, shown at the Berlin film festival, offers an uncensored view from the frontline of conflict

A frontline paramedic volunteer in eastern Ukraine who has made a documentary about the gruesome everyday reality of his battalion’s work has said he wanted to offer an uncensored view from the heart of the conflict in order to “wake up the world”.

Yevhen Titarenko, a film director who has been part of a volunteer medical battalion, the Hospitallers, since 2014, said viewers may find his film Shidniy Front (Eastern Front) hard to watch but he believed it was a necessary means to tell the truth.