call me anytime, i’m not leaving the house

Two days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lesya Verba, a Brooklyn-based artist and performer, gets through to her older sister in Odessa, Ukraine via FaceTime.

Through the frame of this first FaceTime conversation since the day everything changed, Call Me Anytime, I’m Not Leaving the House is a film about love, memory, national identity, and the (im)permanence of home, as the sisters cling to a call that could be their last.

Roles: Director, Producer, Cinematographer, and Editor

Supported by Brown Girls Doc Mafia & the MDOCS John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative, Skidmore College.

Screenings:

October 1, 2022 — Woodstock Film Festival (World Premiere; in-person & virtual)*

October 20-23, 2022 — 18th New York City Short Film Festival (virtual)

October 20-24, 2022 — Indie Memphis Film Festival (virtual)

November 10, 2022 — DCTV Firehouse Cinema, New York (6pm EST)*

November 11, 2022 — Cinema Village, New York (9:30pm EST)*

November 20, 2022 — Producers Club Theaters, New York (12pm EST)

March 4, 2023 — DCTV Firehouse Cinema, New York (2:45pm EST)

March 5, 2023 — Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Brooklyn, New York (12:45pm EST)

April 1, 2023 - Camelot Theatres, Palm Springs, California (12pm PST)