logline

As Brazilian footballers join a Ukrainian team, their arrival sidelines local players – some of whom face conscription. With war creeping ever closer, football becomes a mirror of a nation torn apart.

synopsis

Like many Brazilian boys from poor backgrounds, 18-year-old Kauã Elias dreamed of becoming a footballer: to escape poverty and make his mother proud. But he never imagined his talent would land him in one of the largest armed conflicts of the 21st century. Just months ago, he couldn’t have pointed to Ukraine on a map.

Kauã is one of many Brazilians recruited by FC Shakhtar Donetsk over the past two decades, a transfer strategy that helped the underdog club win the UEFA Cup in 2009. Since 2014, when Russian-backed separatists seized Donetsk, Shakhtar has become a team in exile – nomadic, rootless, and long defined by its Brazilian stars.

Then came February 24, 2022. Russia’s full-scale invasion forced foreign players to flee. The club had no choice but to continue with an all-Ukrainian squad, a move that turned football into a symbol of national resistance. Now, nearly three years into the war, with global support waning and U.S. policy shifting under Trump’s second term, Kauã and other Brazilians return. But their comeback is met with unease. For their Ukrainian teammates, losing a roster spot could mean conscription into a thinned-out army. 

The Wars We Play follows Shakhtar’s fractured squad as it navigates identity, survival and solidarity in a country at war. The battle isn’t only on the frontlines – it plays out in locker rooms, on the pitch and in fleeting moments of brotherhood.

directors’ statement

The parallels between the playing field and the battlefield, between the club and the battalion, are obvious. Football and war – two worlds dominated by men, characterized by a language of attack and defense, of winning and losing ground, of strategy, positioning, and survival. In both, surrender is unthinkable. Nowhere is this connection more tangible than in Ukraine, where football and war not only overlap but collide. And at the center of this overlap stands FC Shakhtar Donetsk.

The Wars We Play is a multi-layered portrait of today's Ukraine, told through the people connected to this unique football club. From the war veteran who now plays for Shakhtar's newly formed amputee team to the newly arrived Brazilian player who has to find his way in a foreign country torn apart by war, each perspective illuminates a different facet of resilience and displacement. Exploring war and war fatigue through a creative football documentary is an approach that has not been taken before.

One central question takes center stage: How do national divisions manifest themselves within the team while Ukraine's morale is being put to an unprecedented test? Can team spirit overcome these divisions? We examine this not only on the pitch, but also in the stands – through the fans who support this club.

As a Ukrainian-Brazilian directing duo, we are uniquely positioned to bridge Shakhtar's dual identity and gain the trust of our protagonists on both sides of the camera. Our latest film, Fission, about Germany's exit from nuclear power, is premiering in 2025 at major documentary festivals like CPH:DOX, DOK.fest München and Kraków. This collaboration has sharpened our collaborative process and mutual trust, and now we are ready to take on a new challenge together. If in Fission we took a fresh look at a heated political issue as outsiders, then in The Wars We Play our nationalities are the key to becoming insiders – right at the heart of the team.