Sarajevo review: Cuba & Alaska (2025)

When truth is stranger than fiction, there is only one thing left to do: laugh out loud and have fun. Competing for the Best Documentary Award at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival, Cuba & Alaska presents the story of the eponymous girls, two combat medics saving soldiers on the frontlines in Ukraine. The film, written and directed by Yegor Troyanovsky, offers new and valuable insight into this very contemporary and palpable armed conflict, which – still hard to believe – takes place in 21st-century Europe.

While most films approaching the topic are either fiction (Honeymoon by Zhanna Ozirna) or deal with the effects of war from a safe distance (The Hamlet Syndrome by Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosolowski), the filmmaker wants his audience to feel like they are in the middle of the raw, unfiltered, and unplanned action. To achieve this, the shaky body and phone cameras follow Cuba & Alaska, two young women and best friends who voluntarily enlisted in the Army to fight for their country and their loved ones. Both of them are also trying to live an everyday life: Alaska passes English tests online, admitting she is more scared of failing than of dying, and Cuba flies to Paris for an upcoming fashion show promoting her new designs drawn in between missions. We get access to their private messages, videos and FaceTime calls, making them even more relatable. They start to feel like our own acquaintances.

What is truly remarkable to watch is everyone’s ability to remain calm in the face of danger and appreciate the moment. Whether it is a coping mechanism or an authentic joy in fighting for a noble cause and helping people, the girls and the rest of the team seem to have the time of their lives, cracking jokes, planning pranks, enjoying costume birthday parties, and even getting engaged, as Cuba does. Her laugh is exceptionally infectious, and everyone around her praises it.

Nonetheless, reality is not directed, and tragedy strikes when you least expect it. Fighting in Kharkiv, one comes to the realisation that there is always “a call with death”, as the protagonists put it. Some are just luckier than others. When their house gets burned down by a strike, a second kamikaze drone catches Alaska off guard while she goes in to retrieve her backpack, blasting her 10 meters into the air “like in an action movie”. The shrapnel hits her hard, prolonging the hospital stay and the rehabilitation process. She
needs to re-learn how to walk for months, and is unable to be by her friend’s side during some of her most important life achievements. An even greater tragedy unfolds on camera, destroying what could have been a happy family beyond repair.

But Cuba & Alaska’s joy and desire to fight never stops. The force with which they overcome every obstacle is unbelievable, as well as the power to laugh in Death’s face, one example being the creation of the trend “While we’re still alive”. The duo’s awareness and optimism are truly inspirational, and the conclusion should resonate with every person on Earth: something is always worth it as long as we’re still alive.

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Director(s): Yegor Troyanovsky
Country(s): Ukraine, France, Belgium
Year: 2025
Duration: 93 mins
Producer(s): Christian Popp / Tag Film, Hanne Phlypo / Clin d’oeil films, Olha Bregman / 2Brave
Productions
Cinematography: Serhiy Stetsenko , Yegor Troyanovsky, Vyacheslav Tsvetkov, Eveheniya Bondarenko,
François Chambe
Co-Producer(s): Nathalie Vallet
Editing: Joëlle Alexis
Sound: Ludovic Van Pachterbeke, Laurent Martin
Language(s): Ukrainian, French, Russian, Catalan
Subtitles: English Subtitles Throughout
Sales Company: Kathryn Bonnici / Java Films