Discussion of the film “Before Dawn (Перед Світанком)” 

2024 (11 mins)
Director: Yuliia Haleta

This is not supposed to happen in your twenties, but you embrace the emptiness.

A spacious apartment on the third floor is the only one with the lights on. It’s a warm island in the cold ocean of the outer world. The party is in full swing in there. Clinking glasses, chatter, and laughter drift out through the open balcony. It’s a classmate reunion. Ten years after graduation. They set the goal to hold on till dawn, just as they did on graduation night. And it all goes well until people start disappearing without leaving a trace.

Friday, January 29, 2027
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm ET
Via Zoom
*Film will be viewed during the event

Discussant: Oksana Yakushko, PhD & filmmaker Yuliia Haleta

Presentation: Psychoanalysis as a discipline was developed within the context of the Great War (World War I), offering distinct perspectives on understanding human lives amidst conditions of large-scale violence. Early psychoanalytic theories, including Freud’s work, offer meaningful contributions to understanding how human lives and human minds experience such forms of trauma and brutality. Ideologically based forms of state violence, whether eugenic-based anti-Semitism of the Third Reich or communist-based repressions and “red terror,” were also known and addressed by early psychoanalysts (including Freud). In addition, direct experiences of World War II by many analysts, including from its trenches or while being bombed, also shaped psychoanalytic theories and approaches to clinical work. In reflecting on this film, we can consider how existing psychoanalytic frameworks help us witness, experience, understand, and respond to ongoing violence against Ukrainians (and other groups) as well as human aliveness amidst deadly wars. In addition, we can reflect on how contemporary wars can shape and change psychoanalytic thinking today.