A House Made of Splitters is beating the odds to make the Oscar shortlist

Big shops like HBO Documentary Films, Neon and National Geographic dominate this year’s Oscar documentary shortlist. Few films have survived without major financiers, including one film without an American distributor – Simon Leerg Wilmonts A house of splinters.

“Unfortunately, we were unable to secure distribution in the US. So we played the game alone,” laughs the Danish director. “It’s kind of a déjà vu with my last film, The distant barking of dogswhere it was exactly the same situation.”

Both his previous film and A house of splinters unfolded in eastern Ukraine, a region where Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces had been engaged in a bitter struggle long before Russia’s full-scale invasion last February. Continuous fighting since 2014 has put civilians under severe pressure, leading to increasing unemployment, alcoholism and drug addiction. Many struggling adults ended up neglecting their children; it’s those kind of kids who take the frame A house of splinters.

“Every 10th^e The door hides a broken home,” notes a social worker who works with children sent to a temporary orphanage — the “home” the film’s title refers to. Wilmont filmed within its walls for over a year. The boys and girls housed there were taken from their parents by court order for protection.

A boy tells his fellow children that his father beat him while he was drunk and stabbed his mother once.

“Was there a lot of blood?” ask the children. “Yes, a whole pool of blood.”

A girl says wistfully to one of the adult carers at home: “I will [my mom] stop drinking so we can start again.”

Three children – Eva, Sasha and Kolya – are the focus of the film.

“I was attracted to Eva because of her looks,” recalls the director. “It was both sadness and joy, and she did these cartwheels all the time. And sometimes it seemed like it was her way of venting her anger, and sometimes of celebrating how happy she was.

As for Sasha, “She seemed to live in her own little world. But unlike many other children, she didn’t seem unhappy to be there.

Young Kolya pretends to be thick-skinned, but when his mother visits the shelter (smell of beer on her breath), she pulls him closer and he begins to cry. His arms are covered in cuts he appears to have inflicted on himself, and he’s tattooing himself with permanent marker, including one that reads “Joker.” When not caring for his much younger siblings, he associates with older children, who tend to behave themselves.

“Kolya, he’s just a charmer, you know?” said Wilmont. “If I was a 14-year-old boy, I would have hung out with this boy. You are absolutely certain that you are going on an adventure. They can sometimes be dangerous, but they will always be interesting… But inside, he is a sensitive boy. Take care of his younger siblings [at the shelter]… I found the love he has for her so touching.

Wilmont also worked closely with children The distant barking of dogs. He developed a method to get his subjects used to being filmed.

“I pull out the camera from the start. I always keep it with me. So it becomes something everyday in our daily interactions, almost like a phone or something,” he notes. Children are very curious about how it really works. They want to see their friends. They want to see themselves, so I spend a lot of time trying to get them to work the camera, rotate the viewfinder so they can see themselves… eventually, after doing this many times, it gets boring and they lose the interest in it, it is part of the process to introduce this device [part of] everyday life.”

The temporary orphanage on the grounds of a hospital near Lysyhansk becomes a refuge for the children thanks to the remarkable emotional support of experienced caregivers Marharyta, Olga and Anjelika. They comfort the children and talk openly with them about their living conditions. But they don’t try to put down on paper what they are going through or promise that they will eventually be reunited with their parents.

“It seemed almost cruel at one point,” says Wilmont about the caregivers’ conversations with the children. “But what you said convinced me that you know from years of experience that if you sugar coat something and it doesn’t turn out the way you hoped or how you sugar coated it, it hits the children doubly hard. In a way it almost protects the children by gently introducing the truth or reality. At least that’s how I understood it, because then [the kids] can start preparing for that reality when it comes. But they’re not disappointed either because you didn’t make it something they could hope for, which didn’t happen.

Production was halted before the Russian invasion last February. Since then, most of the children at the orphanage have been moved to safer areas. This is a good thing because Lysychansk has seen intense fighting between the Ukrainian and Russian forces. Wilmont says he was recently told that “a missile hit the living room of the bomb shelter, fell through the roof into the living room, but did not explode. So now there’s a rocket sticking out of the shelter.”

Disruptions, disappointments and trauma became the norm for the children A house of splinters before all-out war broke out. Wilmont looks for glimmers of hope about the prospects for these children.

“Love is a basic human need, and when children lack the love of family, they turn to friendship to survive,” the director noted. “Children are incredibly adaptable… It is in these shelters that they form bonds and friendships that are as deep and important as family ties.”