On October 10, the documentary ‘Lift Force’ — a collaborative project of director Oleksandr Stratienko, aviator Timur Fatkullin and the Aerotim team — will be released in Ukrainian cinemas. The film shows the work of the Ukrainian army aviation, and the footage for it was shot during real combat and training flights of Ukrainian pilots. DTF Magazine talked to Oleksandr and Timur about their work on ‘Lift Force’
The film ‘Lift Force’ tells the stories of military pilots who carried out missions to Snake Island, to Mariupol, which was surrounded in 2022, and performed tasks behind enemy lines. The heroes of the film are Vitalii Savych, Liubarets Yuliia, Taras Nechyporenko, Maksym Chaika, Liubarets Mykola and Viacheslav Zozulia.
‘The heroes of the film are the people who were the first to board and take off during the landing of the russian airborne troops in Hostomel. The people who survived the downing of the aircraft. People who burned enemy columns and oil depots at point-blank range. People who were the first volunteers who flew to Mariupol and not only’, Oleksandr Stratienko says in a commentary for DTF Magazine.
The footage for the film was created using ultra-fast drones of their own production.
— How did the idea for the film come about?
Timur Fatkullin: In September 2023, I met with the commander of Army Aviation. We discussed the plan — to show the work of the people who are usually behind the scenes, but thanks to whom pilots get the aircrafts into the air. We didn’t yet know what form we would choose for this. Also, in October 2023, the first days of shooting were realized by our non-classical crew [Aerotim]. Already then we started interviewing knowledgeable people and realized how much the country lacks normal expertise, specialists who could clearly explain what is really necessary at a given moment, and what is unrealistic and unnecessary.
A few days later, when Sasha Stratienko arrived in the East, we immediately shared the book of helicopter pilot Vasyl Mulik, and over the next few months he immersed himself in filming and made the decision to become a director of a feature-length film. Otherwise, we would not be able to convey the big ideas behind the exposition of flight-related action.
Oleksandr Stratienko: At first, we were on our way to shoot a promotional video for Army Aviation. The goal was not to make a film. But after getting to know the structure, we met people with incredible stories. Living legends that nobody knows about. So we started taking interviews and making a story out of them. The more we filmed, the more we realized: the world should hear and see it, and history should remember it. Timur cast the rod, and I hooked it. That’s how the production mechanism began to work.
— Why did you focus specifically on aviation?
Timur: Dedication. Aerotim is an aviation team, and when there’s an opportunity to add value with our expertise, we do it. And we’ve also been creating ultra-fast drones for several years now, and we’ve been attaching film cameras to these drones.
Oleksandr: Army Aviation is about the sky, freedom and flight. Aerotim had been in existence for over four years before we started working on the film. We filmed flights in sport airplanes. We filmed them from the ground, from other airplanes, from helicopters and even from a hot air balloon. We filmed synchronized airplane stunts along with skydiving and motorcycle jumps. So we already had a lot of experience in extreme filming, which we were able to utilize in filming the helicopters that protect our land.
I was also interested in the project because since childhood my favorite film, which significantly shaped my taste and style as a director, was Ridley Scott’s ‘Black Hawk Down’. And this is a story about an American military helicopter carrying out combat missions in Somalia.
— How did you shoot footage during combat sorties?
Oleksandr: Some of the footage of combat work was shot at the airfields, in the area of aviation work, and another part was provided by the pilots. We also made forays into the combat zone in various directions to film the work of ground teams and interviews.
— What was the filming process like?
Oleksandr: Almost the entire Aerotim team was involved in the filming. During some shooting days the whole team worked — up to 15 people. On some days, we filmed with a small crew of five or six people. Filming military personnel, especially helicopters, requires, above all, well-coordinated teamwork and the ability to shoot everything from the first take.
Just imagine: we are in the field, with poor reception, it’s raining, our big drone is hanging in the air and is about to stop working because of the humidity, one cameraman in the helicopter keeps in touch with our coordinator by radio, the main camera is somewhere in a cornfield thinking how to dodge heat traps and film this, and another operator is sitting in an armored personnel carrier with infantry. And we have to do everything in time, because the sun is setting and all the equipment is getting wet. It is not an easy task, but we have experience in this.
The most difficult shooting was probably in winter at the airfield, when it was very cold and we had to stand close to the helicopter that was taking off and use a camera on a tripod and a drone. You know, the crystallized snow rises very beautifully into the air when the helicopter rotor blades move. My hands and face were freezing, and usually we have to shoot what we need to shoot on the first take. After that we had to fix the drone because the propellers were broken.
— What is the main purpose of ‘Lift Force’?
Oleksandr: The main goal is to shed light on the peculiarities and specifics of the work of army aviation, as well as to convey the feelings and character of the people that make up this separate world. Ideologically, we wanted to tell the stories of our heroes, whom the world has never heard of before, and to convey their spirit. In the film we reveal the issues of motivation, inner feelings and experiences, support for the military and Ukraine in general. And put the question to the entire civilized world. All the stories in the film are retellings of real events. I was very much inspired by the idea of being able to capture a historical cross-section in documentary form.
When we created this film, we wanted to bring a breath of fresh air into the already familiar format of documentary films about the war in Ukraine. We tried to go beyond the documentary format and use sound, music and editing to add artistry.
Timur: We started the project with meetings in the garage, and now we will see our teamwork not on a projector, but in real cinemas. This is thanks to fruitful cooperation with the command, press officers and all levels of the Army Aviation. Before we started the post-production phase we spent almost no money. I am grateful to the entire team who invested their time and resources in this initiative.
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