The realities of working as a frontline documentary filmmaker will be explored during the EnergaCAMERIMAGE Festival, which starts on November 16 in Toruń. One of the event’s guests will be Aldona Hartwińska, a journalist, author, and longtime TVN24 broadcaster who has spent the past two years covering the dramatic events beyond Poland’s eastern border.
The workshop, titled With a Camera on the Front. Why is it important to document a war? A seminar by Aldona Hartwińska on filming the Russian invasion in Ukraine, offers a unique opportunity to gain insights from someone working under extreme conditions during armed conflict. Aldona Hartwińska, who saw war firsthand for the first time in Ukraine, has since regularly returned to the frontlines to document the realities of war in Donbas and Zaporizhzhia. Accompanied by her camera, her mission extends beyond assisting the military at the front to also sharing stories that are hard for many to imagine.
During the seminar, Hartwińska will share her experiences working in war zones. She will discuss why documenting war is so crucial and what drives a documentarian to undertake such dangerous work, risking their own life to tell the world about the tragedy unfolding before our eyes. She will also address technical aspects, such as navigating a war zone, using encryption, communicating safely in the field, and other essential skills for survival under extreme conditions.
As a guest of EnergaCAMERIMAGE, she will share lesser-known aspects of life on the front—for instance, the importance of using airplane mode on a phone or the need to remove SIM cards in certain areas. She will also discuss the ethics of documentary work in conflict zones and the responsibility carried by those who capture these events. Aldona Hartwińska’s work exemplifies the dangerous but essential role of documentarians who have the courage to report on war in a way that enables a deeper understanding of its reality and consequences.
The EnergaCAMERIMAGE Festival 2024 will begin on Saturday, November 16 in Toruń, Kujawy Pomorze Region, and will run until November 23. The full program of events can be found at camerimage.pl.