“Genuinely moving and deeply memorable”

For many Ukrainians, Germany has long been a place of work, study and migration, but after 2022 it became something else: a place of refuge. Mykyta Gibalenko’s Camouflage finds an interesting way into this history by going back to 2021, before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The war does not appear immediately. Instead, we first meet Vitaly, a 22-year-old Ukrainian learning German and preparing to leave for Munich. His decision seems personal at first, almost ordinary, until the events of the following year give it a completely different meaning. By placing the invasion around the middle of the film, Gibalenko allows us to know Vitaly before history changes the meaning of his departure.

Vitaly arrives in Munich hoping to build a new life. He joins a student theatre group and, for the first time, seems to find a place where he can be himself. Yet there is always something slightly uncertain about his freedom. He changes according to the people and spaces around him, while his difficult relationship with language makes his attempt to belong even more complicated. Arthur Aliiev plays him with remarkable restraint: much of the performance comes through his face, physical presence and silences, giving Vitaly an awkwardness that never turns into caricature.

When the war begins and Vitaly’s mother Tetyana and sister Eugenia arrive in Germany, the life he has built suddenly becomes impossible to separate from the one he left behind. This is where Camouflage becomes most affecting. The family relationships are beautifully observed, with affection and irritation existing side by side. Yelyzaveta Tsilyk gives Eugenia a strong emotional openness, while Anna Yaremchuk-Bobalo finds surprising vulnerability beneath Tetyana’s strictness. Their scenes together feel like they have known each other for years. The same quality extends to Klara Lange as Fiona, whose generosity towards the family does not make her a simple figure of comfort. Every performer brings something distinct, and the chemistry between them gives the film much of its warmth.

Gibalenko’s own experience of moving from Ukraine to Germany in 2013 is clearly present in the film, particularly in its understanding of the spaces migrants occupy. Vitaly moves between apartments, the theatre, temporary rooms and the donation centre, but none of these places completely settle into home. The interiors are carefully chosen and often crowded, allowing the outside world to remain present without constantly showing it. The war is felt through conversations, absences and sudden changes in relationships. The donation centre, filled with Ukrainians and German volunteers, becomes especially powerful because it brings together people who are responding to the same historical event from very different positions.

The film also makes an important choice with Vitaly’s speech impediment. Gibalenko does not turn it into a problem that needs to be cured or overcome. Instead, it becomes part of the character’s gradual acceptance of himself. His final monologue therefore carries more weight because it does not offer a conventional transformation. Vitaly does not become someone new; he becomes more willing to remain the person he already is.

There are moments when the film’s ideas are more carefully arranged than its best scenes need them to be. Some of the symbolism around theatre, identity and adaptation is quite visible, and the film occasionally explains what its characters have already made clear through their behaviour. But these weaknesses are softened by the performances, which remain consistently engaging. Aliiev, Tsilyk, Yaremchuk-Bobalo, Lange and the supporting cast give the film an emotional texture that feels genuine rather than manufactured. What stays with us is less the film’s symbolism than the people inside it: a family trying to live together again, a young man trying to understand where he belongs, and strangers learning how close another person’s history can suddenly become. Camouflage is a poetic and deeply felt debut, and one I found genuinely moving and deeply memorable.