- Welcome to POV.
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of PBS Wisconsin's Director's Cut.
Tonight, we take you to the frontlines of the war in Ukraine
through the Oscar-nominated documentary
A House Made of Splinters.
A House Made of Splinters
looks at the toll the war in Ukraine
has taken on poor families that live near the frontlines
in the war with Russia.
It gives us a gritty, riveting look
at a slice of life that no child should have to experience.
But through the struggle of these characters in the film,
we see humanity at its best
as social workers and educators,
who truly believe they can change the world
look after other people's children
and do almost anything to keep them safe.
A House Made of Splinters
is directed by Simon Lereng Wilmont.
A documentarian must build trust with their subjects.
Building trust with children in a war-ravaged country
is no easy task.
Wilmont also has an interesting tactic he uses
to decide who he will focus on.
He films his subjects before he starts a project.
This documentary within a documentary
enables him to find out who his main characters are.
For A House Made of Splinters,
he found his lead actors in Sasha, Eva, and Kolya.
Wilmont says he was able to win the trio over
because he doesn't use a large crew.
He does his own cinematography
and the rest of his crew is basically just one person:
an assistant director.
That doesn't even qualify as a skeleton crew,
but it does contribute to a unique level of intimacy.
Wilmont says what also helps him relate to kids is that
he has two of his own about the same age as his actors.
Documentarians are filmmakers, activists, and journalists.
Each project affects them differently.
Wilmont almost certainly has the activist gene.
Long after the cameras stopped rolling on this project,
he, along with his AD and his Ukrainian coordinator,
are still active in the lives of the three children,
trying to keep them safe
and giving them some sense of a normal childhood.
This is Wilmont's second film
about kids living through the Ukrainian war.
in 2017, The Distant Barking of Dogs won a Peabody Award.
His goal as a filmmaker
is to connect his audiences to his characters so deeply,
they form an emotional bond to the point
where we the viewers want to help the people
whose stories he tells.
Wilmont says a well-done documentary can emotionally
connect us to people to the point where we feel like we know
them, even though we will never meet.
It's time to connect.
A House Made of Splinters starts now on PBS Wisconsin,
your home for independent film.