- I have never vlogged with a cinema camera, which is really heavy.

But I just wanna show you how I edit the video about animals in Ukraine.

So there is no electricity in my district.

As you can hear, this is sound of generator.

Not mine, this is the generator of my neighbors.

While there is no electricity, we have air alert and this is the third air alert for just one single day.

But I still edit.

Hello, my name is Anton.

I am the director of the documentary, "Saving the Animals of Ukraine".

This is how I looked like one and a half years ago when we just started to shoot this documentary.

And this is how I look right now when we finished eventually this documentary, I can definitely say that finishing this documentary tremendously helps you look younger.

This video is supposed to be a behind the scenes video, but because I mostly shot everything on my own, I didn't have a cameraman most of the time.

So I don't have any kind of BTS footage, proper BTS footage.

So I thought, so maybe I just, I dunno, tell you some interesting stuff about the shooting process, some interesting stories that weren't included in a final cut.

And we have a lot of such stories because we shot, I don't know, 80, 85 hours of row footage.

So yeah.

And that was tough one and a half years because war is still going.

And Kyiv was bombarded many times.

And while we were going to the bomb shelter, we saw like a lot of animals with their owners.

And for sure it give us this clear understanding that animals, they are not only witnesses of this war, they unfortunately the victims of this war, and not only physically, but mentally as well, because animals, they went through a lot of stress.

And we will show it in in our documentary.

(building rumbles) (dog barks) But at the same time, animals help people.

They help people cope with the stress and they help people to deal with consequences of this war.

I spent a lot of time with bomb squad.

They have a bomb sniffing dog, and these squads, basically they are looking for mines.

They collect the mines and they blow in that mines in the fields.

So they're clearing up the territory of Ukraine, which is one of the most, or even the most contaminated in the world right now with the land mines.

And I filmed preparation for the big explosion, I dunno, couple of tons of TNT.

I point out my camera to the possible direction of this explosion, hit the record button, then flew my drone.

And... (bomb explodes) Eventually I realized that I just blocked in the view of this explosion, which happens when you film everything on your own.

But luckily I have a drone footage.

So yeah.

During the shootings, I filmed a lot in animal shelters.

And the most interesting one, it's not even shelter, it's a sanctuary, White Rock Sanctuary.

They've been saving bears, primarily bears from circuses for many, many years.

This is Chada, this is a Tien Shan bear.

Pretty rare.

And she's playing with water because this is the part of paternalistic behavior.

It's compulsive behavior because she spent, I dunno, I believe most of her life in the circuses.

So obviously it impacts her patterns, patterns of her behavior.

- You can take out bear from cage, but it's much more hard to take out cage from bear because it's always in his brain's cage.

- [Anton] This is Marina.

Marina, she's a Chief Zoologist of Kyivzoo and she one of the founders of the sanctuary.

She helped us a lot with the making of documentary from a scientific standpoint.

And this is your favorite bear.

His name is Synochok or Son.

And he's incredibly funny.

- It's unique bear.

He's like a Labrador.

We call him Labrador Bear.

He's very communicative.

He's cheerful, he's playful.

He amazing and he loves people really.

He never avoids people.

He loves visitors.

He loves stuff.

He's jealous when you spend your time near other bears.

When you are doing something in other enclosures, he will watch you what you are doing, why you are not with him.

- [Anton] Why he is like that?

- [Marina] It's not normal situation for large carnivores.

Usually predators are not so tolerant to people.

Of course, it doesn't mean that you can go inside enclosure and kiss him.

No.

It's a bear.

But you can communicate and you can build trust between caretaker and bear through the fence in protected contact.

- So there is a tiny fraction of stories that we would like to share with you, and I hope you'll watch our documentary, "Saving Animals of Ukraine".

For me, as a director, it's really important for you to watch this film because it's not only about animals and about relationship, it's also about this brutal and cruel war that Russia waging against Ukraine.

And it's important to not to forget about it.

Thank you so much and hope to see you.