The Paul Celan Literature Center is hosting the Travelling Festival. Residents of Chernivtsi gathered to watch the film Sakawa by Ben Asamoah. It’s a film about teenagers from Ghana who make their living with fraud, by seducing lonely men online.

“The world we live in is not a fairy tale like the ones we were told before bed. There are no good guys and bad guys in it, and Superman isn’t going to come to the rescue of the destitute. In the film, victims transfer the money on their own. Without any coercion or blackmail. Some time and kind words are enough.

“The protagonists are, no doubt, criminals. But does it make them absolute villains? It’s ambiguous. Sure, they’re breaking the law, moral norms, but do they have a choice? The world has turned its back to them, so they had to look for an alternative way out of the situation. Yes, an illegal, ugly and immoral one. But what else can they do? Work for pennies until they die and hope for a brighter future? Of course, nothing in this life comes for free. And hopelessness is not a reason to give up and commit a crime. But what can you do if you live in a country where more than ⅕ of the population live in poverty? The filmmaker doesn’t answer the question and doesn’t try to impose any opinion on us, he just watches the remote and the unknown,” says Vitaliy Marinov, a volunteer for the NGO “Club of Ukrainian Youth”.