A City within a Building

The Mariupol theatre airstrike on March 16th 2022 was a shocking milestone in the early weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The theatre had sheltered thousands of civilians during the siege of Mariupol; the word “children” was written on the ground outside, to avoid the theatre being considered as a military target. Nevertheless, a Russian missile struck the building, in what was among the war’s most deadliest airstrikes against civilians.
After the attack on civilians came the attack on evidence. Since Russia took control of Mariupol, occupying authorities have systematically manipulated and erased evidence about the strike on the theatre. In late 2022, the theatre was surrounded by screening, and bulldozed to the ground.
In the face of that erasure – both of evidence of a war crime, and of Ukrainian cultural heritage – CST gathered and analysed thousands of photos, videos, and social media posts, and recorded over 100 hours of never-before-seen witness testimony, to reconstruct a picture of life in the besieged theatre: a refuge, and an act of resistance.

The film tells the story of that life, through the words of those that lived it. It is a story of a self-organised social network, which fed, clothed, and cared for one another and their neighbours, traded with other sheltering communities, and exercised collective decision-making, becoming a full and functioning city within a single building.

The future chapters of the investigation about the Mariupol theatre airstrike will be dealing with the bombing itself. CST will uncover what ammunition was used, where the bomb landed, how many casualties were inflicted, who they were and where they occurred. The online archive will be updated permanently.