ACT III. CHILDREN ALWAYS REMAIN CHILDREN
Inspiration: “Children are not the people of tomorrow, but are people of today.” (Janusz Korczak)
“All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
Concept:
Children as the absolute, pure “one” of humanity, which does not obey the laws of adult chaos.
The inviolability of their inner world as an axiom for raising a new Civilization.
A Civilization for a Planet Without War.
Many of them do not have a childhood in the usual, safe sense of the word. War, crises, absurdity, and the chaos of modernity — all this hell accompanies them every minute. But Children still remain Children.
They draw with chalk on asphalt among concrete blocks. They kick a ball along broken roads. They believe in fairy tales and they believe in us… adults. In my life, I have seen many children, in the most different conditions, and you know what impressed me most — their lack of prejudice, their lightness, sincerity, and honesty. The most sincere smile is the smile of an infant, whose world has not yet been touched by adult “can/cannot/must” and other “serious” dogmas, rules, and laws. There is so much Sun and primordial purity in this smile, such immaculate holiness, that you think God Himself is smiling at you.
As F.M. Dostoevsky said: “Children are the fragments of paradise that have not yet broken.”
My project is not about the horror around these children, not about external conditions or circumstances. It is about what is inside them. About what cannot be broken, shelled, or taken away. That very primordial purity, that very holiness, sincerity, and honesty. About what we, adults, have almost completely and irreversibly lost.
I categorically refused to shoot “poor children for pity.” It is dishonest towards them. They do not ask for pity at all. They Live. Despite everything. And this dignity — simply to continue living — surpasses many adult feats combined.
They are that very pure “one” which has not yet been overgrown with zeros of achievements, statuses, and masks. They do not choose to be human — they simply are. They remind us, adults, of what we so often lose in the chase for the illusions of the “Big Land.”
Children are the same everywhere. No matter where their childhood unfolds. They rejoice, get capricious, play little tricks, smile at a new day, and carefully arrange the pillow for their toy before going to sleep. And they love. They love just because. Without conditions or conventions, without bargaining or ulterior motives. Simply because they love. And in this love of theirs, there is something divine, something so impossible for us grown-ups.
But time is relentless. Sooner or later, they will have to leave this protected inner world. They will have to face a world where people are divided into “ours” and “theirs.” Where the presence or absence of a single piece of paper decides everything. Into our World. The World of adults.
