When I went to Ukraine in 2005, after the Orange Revolution, to make a film, I thought it would be a short documentary about a post-soviet country that found its new path towards a democratic future. However, the story didn’t add up: that bright future didn’t happen, the characters didn’t evolve, Ukraine and its people slipped into stagnation. Despite that, I became very intrigued by Ukraine, its history and complex identity.

As a Ukrainian who grew up in the USSR, having lived in an independent Ukraine for a decade before moving to the US, I realized I had a very vague idea about Ukraine and its story. So, I kept coming back: to follow up, to do more interviews, to look for clues and deeper understanding of why this rich country with such potential is stuck in economic decline and a post-soviet mentality. Why the statues of Lenin and communist leaders are still standing in central squares? Why people still appreciate soviet symbols and hold on to old habits?

My friends and family didn’t refrain from sarcastic remarks when I chased them with questions; my own mother accused me of being Americanized and becoming detached from Ukrainian life (which may have been true, although she came around a few years later and views once unthinkable to her then became her new reality). I didn’t know where Ukraine was going and what was coming next, but I was convinced that making this film was important as I strongly felt I was witnessing something historic — and I was right.

I’ve lived through some of those historic moments: communism, Gorbachev’s perestroika, the fall of the Berlin wall, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the beginning of Ukrainian independence. When life took me overseas, my Ukrainian family continued living through tumultuous times: revolutions, fear of separatism, war. Through my story and my family’s story I’m opening up a window into the personal lives of ordinary people who were forced to live through a series of historic cataclysms, showing how they handled daily challenges and what they thought and felt in the moment.

I could have never imagined myself embarking on a storytelling journey that would last for years and would come to a conclusion more than a decade after I arrived in my hometown of Kharkiv with a video camera. When the Maidan revolution of 2014 prompted the Russian government to invade Ukraine and start a war, with a military conflict zone close to my home town, the story became clear. Those events shook my family more than the collapse of the Soviet Union and made them discover strong patriotic feelings for Ukraine.

The Long Breakup is my attempt to take the viewer on an intimate journey, and show how big geopolitical changes — the ones most only hear about in the news — affect ordinary people on a personal level.