Hot Docs 2026: Traces Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Hot Docs Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

War awakens the worst in people. Despite the atrocities committed by all sides against one another, these conflicts often involve more than physical violence. When it comes to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, these war crimes can be traced back to Russia’s invasion of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea invasion in 2014. In director Alisa Kovalenko’s Traces, she documents the stories of Ukrainian women who have suffered from sexual abuse throughout the last decade. In its first moments, Kovalenko films the history of one of the victims, one severely abused during the Crimean annexation. She decides to document the violent act committed against her at the hands of the Russian army.

Traces documents the work of SEMA Ukraine, an NGO that advocates against the aggression of the Russian army and the violence committed by these opposing troops. Over the course of the film, Kovalenko allows the women to report the violent acts committed against them. What comes from this is a bevy of raw moments, highlighting the traumatic and heartbreaking events these women of varying ages have experienced. That being said, this also serves as a beautiful documentation of the construction of a community, one where victims who support one another, and the effects of that violence on their lives.

Kovalenko welcomes the contributions and open-hearted tellings of Iryna Dovhan, Tetyana Vasylenko, Liudmyla Mefodiivna, Galyna Tyshchenko, and Olha Cherniak. Besides representing SEMA Ukraine, an organization that fights and denounces brutal war crimes, they provide comfort for each other. Arguably, the most crucial and beautiful moments of the film are the conversations between them. A particular moment sees the aforementioned women talking to Iryna through a video call, where they report the activities of the group. The film focuses on the beautiful connection between those victims, women traumatized by war crimes oft ignored by the international community. It aims to seek out solutions when there are none.

Accordingly, it concentrates on the complicated aftermath of the violence. It is the most important subject matter of the film, yet, it fails to provide much beyond the structure of the vulnerability. As a result, it depends heavily on its individuals and the rawness of their experiences. There is a sense that the film works as a denunciation and the documentation of the women who decide to seek healing by protecting others. In the end, the strength of Traces is in the dialogue between these women. However, its structure has a shallowness to it, providing space for the film, but that is solely it. Though it works well across that frame, it suffers from a repetitiveness though sequences that drag the effective message of the project.

Traces, from director Alisa Kovalenko, is a raw denunciation of the war crimes committed by Russia through traumatic and heartbreaking cases of sexual abuse. Despite the fragility of its frame, it is a powerful story of Ukrainian women taking care of each other.

still courtesy of Berlinale

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Pedro Lima

Brazilian film writer. He is also a producer and executive producer for Zariah Filmes. Member of the International Film Society Critics Association (IFSCA), International Documentary Association (IDA), and Gotham and Media Film Institute.