The Tribeca Film Festival awarded David Gutnik's documentary Rule of Two Walls with the Documentary Competition Special Jury Mention. The film celebrated its world premiere during the festival.

The Jury commented: “For embedding us with a group of artists who refused to be stripped of their heritage and cultural expression, we would like to give a special jury mention for human rights and artistic expression to Rule of Two Walls.”

“No wars can deprive us of our cultural heritage and traditions,” says an anonymous Ukraine-based artist around the midpoint of David Gutnik’s searing and affecting documentary Rule of Two Walls. The film’s title refers to the safety guideline for people living in Ukraine that the safest space to survive a bombing is between two walls with no windows between a person and the street. What unfolds in its 77-minute runtime is more than standard profile pieces on different Ukrainian artists, ranging from musicians to muralists to costume designers to filmmakers.

Gutnik gives an unflinching, shocking look into the carnage and devastation brought onto this country by the war, which you would expect to see in a Matthew Heineman documentary. Even as the sirens blare outside, people go about their usual routines while under the constant threat of danger. But all of this also serves as a reminder of why these artists choose to stay and fight using their craft. Gutnik goes past the question of how the people cope with the daily threat of violence to how they comprehend it in their own ways, even by creating works of art that conveys their terrifying experiences as an act of resistance. This documentary is one of the most impactful films of Tribeca, maybe even the year, that deepens the scope of the War in Ukraine by putting emphasis on Ukrainian culture and the human condition.

Divided into four chapters, the film opens up in April 2022, just two months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. People are trying to hold on to some sense of normalcy, from groups playing basketball, to daily commutes, to hanging out in social settings. Lyana Mytsko is a concert organizer and director of the Lviv Municipal Arts Center, which has also been used as a shelter for exiles and evacuees. There, artists are collaborating on a show to present a different side of Mariupol post-destruction in a way that gives hope for a better future. As Mytsko says, “[This is a way] to gain control over this crazy shit.” Her partner Stepan, a heavy metal singer/rapper, is numb to all that has gone on within the months of Russia’s invasion but tries to use his music as a beacon of hope. We are reminded that while these artists may have a common cause, they are still human and are coping in their own certain ways.