Digger, 2025
HD-video, 45 min

In May 2016, Ekaterina Shapiro-Obermair took part in the exhumation of fallen soldiers of the Red Army, carried out by the organization “Pamyat” in a forest near the small town of Majdan-Holohirskyj in the Lviv region (Western Ukraine). This association is one of numerous branches of the so-called “search movement” (poshukovyj rukh in Ukrainian / poiskovoe dvizhenie in Russian), which emerged in the late 1980s during the Glasnost and Perestroika era of the USSR and remains active in several post-Soviet countries today. Its goal is to literally get to the bottom of historical truth by exhuming and identifying soldiers who fell on the battlefields of the two World Wars and giving them a proper burial—regardless of the army they served in.

The film is composed of long, quiet takes. We see men dressed in paramilitary clothing searching for those who died decades ago. They perform physically demanding labor that is neither spectacular nor driven by efficiency or productivity. They exchange brief remarks, often without really listening to each other.

Viewed in the context of today’s Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, it becomes clear that some of these men might now be soldiers themselves – and it is uncertain whether they are still alive. The video work raises the question of the role of the male body in war – a body that brings death and is simultaneously exposed to particular danger. Gräber is an anti-war film in which past and present intertwine in an endless loop.

If you are interested in watching the film, I would be pleased to provide you with a screener. Please contact me via e-mail.