Documentary in production in Irpin commemorates 2022’s first city defenders

In Irpin, located in the Kyiv region, production is underway on a documentary film highlighting the people who were the first to defend the city from Russian forces in February 2022.

The ITV news agency reported this.

The script for the documentary was penned by writer Serhii Martyniuk, who was himself one of the defenders of Irpin.

He authored the script and lived through the events he depicted. On the first day of the full-scale invasion, he armed himself with a hunting rifle and ammunition and joined the local territorial defense. Throughout the defense of Irpin, he maintained a notebook, documenting events amid the shelling.

"The idea to create a documentary about Irpin's initial defenders came to me during the city's liberation in April 2022. I want to highlight that Ukraine's armed forces were absent from the very first day, February 24. The National Guard of Ukraine retreated to Kyiv on February 24, leaving only the defenders—the ordinary people of Irpin—behind," says Martyniuk.

Serhii emphasized that some of the notes disappeared, but most were preserved, and they became the basis of the future film.

According to the authors, the film is being created without political interference or orders, and its primary goal is to show the true story of those who defended Irpin. The project is being implemented under the patronage of the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting, and the Gulfstream Production team is directly involved in the filming.

"We have already conducted many interviews with direct participants in the events, with the heroes of Irpin. When Irpin was given the title of "Hero City," I thought that this was a continuation of the Soviet tradition. But the question is not about places. It is about people. Therefore, if we talk about Irpin, then Irpin is a city of heroes," the film's director Yurii Bedenko emphasized.

Interestingly, most members of the creative team were not professional military personnel, yet each contributed to the fight during the invasion:

• Sound engineer Serhii Muschenko served in the Kyiv territorial defense during the full-scale invasion.
• Oleksandr Haidai, the project administrator, and his family manned checkpoints and assisted residents with food and energy supplies.
• Valentyn Shevtsov, a line producer, organized the first checkpoint in his area on February 25 alongside his neighbors.

"When the shelling paused briefly, we stepped out for a smoke and a chat. Suddenly, we heard a woman running […], yelling that tanks were approaching. We quickly finished our cigarettes, spotted wooden pallets, and used them to build fortifications. Only later, more seasoned individuals joined us and advised that we needed concrete blocks. We gathered everything and set up a checkpoint. That's when the story we'll present in our film began," Shevtsov recalls.

Bedenko noted that he had been capturing stories about Kyiv's defense from the very first day of the war. The filmmakers have not predicted the project's completion, but they estimate that only 30 percent of the work is finished.

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It's important to note that the Atlas United 2024 festival, held last summer in collaboration with UNITED24 and Monobank, raised 100 million hryvnias. Half of these funds were allocated for purchasing drones, while the other half was used to acquire robotic platforms.