OUR COLORS NEVER FADE
JIM MCSHERRY | UKRAINE + GERMANY | 2026 | 83 MIN | ENGLISH + UKRAINIAN EST
JIM MCSHERRY | UKRAINE + GERMANY | 2026 | 83 MIN | ENGLISH + UKRAINIAN EST
Subtitles: English
Presented by
Synopsis
Testimonies from over ten openly LGBTQ+ women and men fighting on the battlefields of Ukraine. A moving, hard-hitting documentary that celebrates the courage and incredible resilience of these extraordinary soldiers. They were artists, vets, drama teachers, cabinetmakers, scientists and farmers. They became soldiers, field nurses, snipers, bombardiers and drone builders when Russia invaded their country in 2022. It is estimated that more than 25,000 of them are fighting today. People of all ages and from all walks of life who have enlisted to defend their country, but also because, as they say, ‘if Russia occupies Ukraine, we will be relentlessly hunted down and even killed. We might as well die for a just cause’. In this hard-hitting documentary, some of the archive footage is harrowing – destroyed landscapes, the mutilated bodies of soldiers, gay men and lesbians beaten by Russians in the street – but the candid testimonies of these magnificent human beings offer hope for the future and for humanity. An essential documentary on a reality that is almost never discussed.
Trailer
Filmmaker Bio
Jim McSherry is a Berlin-based director-producer whose work spans documentary and socially engaged cinema. His previous films include Homeboy, which had its international premiere at Documenta Madrid, and La Vérité du Ciel (The Truth of the Sky), which had its American Premiere at the Santa Fe Film Festival and International Premiere at the Tunis Film Festival. Both were documentary shorts. Our Colors Never Fade is his first feature documentary.
Director's Statement
Our Colors Never Fade tells the personal stories of LGBTQIA+ members of the Ukrainian military fighting against the Russian aggressors, their lives before the war and now during the fighting. I hope to show their heroism as Defenders, as well as their lives as ordinary citizens. I am just the messenger. The objective is to show who the LGBTQIA+ community really is in the context of the war, and to help break down prejudices through real-life education about the community, rather than fear-based hatred.
Producer
Karl Hillbrick
Writer
Mariia Ruapulova
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