When Will This Wind Stop

The title of this documentary about the Russian occupation of the Crimea works on two levels. There’s the literal level, when the grandmother of the family portrayed complains about the weather. But there’s also the symbolic level: the title is an indictment of the Russian occupation, which has descended upon the Crimea like a dark storm. A short timeline shows us that the Crimea was occupied by Stalin in the 1940s. Following the fall of the Iron Curtain, the original Crimean Tatars returned to their peninsula. Now, this same generation is once again being driven from their homes by an aggressive show of force by Vladimir Putin. In four overlapping stories, young Polish director Aniela Astrid Gabryel shows the influence of the occupation on different generations: parents talking to children they can no longer live with on Skype, meanwhile caring for their own parents, who have been through the same thing before. These family members are risking their lives by appearing in the film – this is why their surnames aren’t included in the credits.