In 2014-205, Lithuanian Mantas Kvedaravičius was filming the inhabitants of the Ukrainian city Mariupol, in a delicate fresco about the attempt to regain the sense of normality in times of conflict. As we all know, that semblance of balance was brutally shattered on February 24, 2022: at that time Mantas was far away, in Africa, filming his new project. That didn’t stop him from taking immediate action: he decided to go back, out of a noble belief in the documentarian’s mission – that of gathering images which will endure in the face of infamy and atrocity. At the beginning of April 2022 he was captured and killed in Mariupol: he left behind a film – finished by his collaborators – and, most importantly, a gaze. “Mariupolis 2” represents the rigorous counter-image of any triumphalist attitude flaunted around in mass-media or in Hollywood depictions: a dignified and necessary film on the nearly invisible gestures – sweeping up the shards in a churchyard, cooking a pot of soup in the open air – which allow us to preserve our humanity when all falls apart around us. A shattering viewing experience. (Victor Morozov)