Watching: Deep Plate

Overview

In Kyiv during wartime, four Ukrainians who exist outside the expected image of Slavic identity reflect on belonging, culture, and home. Built from audio interviews and accompanying visuals, the film weaves their voices into a fragmented portrait of identity shaped by language, memory, and place. Framed by the recurring motif of the “deep plate” —a linguistic substitute for a word that does not exist in Ukrainian—the film explores cultural absence, adaptation, and the experience of mixed heritage. As war reshapes both the city and the self, their stories reveal identity as something fluid, layered, and continually redefined.