Welded Together Review
‘Welded Together’ is a story both resonant in subject and impressionable in its uniqueness. Katya is only now, at the age of 22, creating a bond with her biological mother, who, a habitual alcoholic, lost her parental rights before Katya came to be who we see on the screen; a sensitive girl of few words, dressed in awkward jeans and hiding under hoodies, who earns her living in the very male-dominated environment of metal welding. She is eloquent and determined under her heavy work suit. She is only giving away her fragility every time she puts down the welding pistol and has a break with her colleagues.
They, older than her, are playful and considerate around her, looking at her with admiration—that novice type, as if first discovered only recently, as if they discovered her because of Anastasiya Miroshnichenko’s camera, which chose to follow her. In this sense, it’s rather hard to believe the respect of a woman making a living in such a traditionally masculine environment, and it’s easy to follow this thought once we find Katya in an international welding conference outside her familiar and safe workplace. Anyhow, Miroshnichenko doesn’t bother much on these differences, quite rightly so, since they are, anyhow, ever present and in parallel to a young woman’s encounter with a (and any) work environment. But Miroshnichenko, in her fourth feature documentary, does get to bother with the development of the relationship between Katya and her biological mother.
This reconnection is the departure of ‘Welded Together,’ with the coming of Amina, the baby sister of Katya. Amina, a cheerful, hyperactive (and admittedly very stylish) baby, is slowly becoming the representation of Katya’s path to reclaim her lost future. I am not certain this was exactly the intention here (note this for later), but the contrast between seeing Katya welding like a veteran and blowing soap bubbles like a kid, to my eyes, spoke about a woman with a stolen childhood. These nuances, weighing down solely on the angelic face of Katya, are humbling the director and completely taking over the stirring of the narration.
Nevertheless, the main aftertaste of ‘Welded Together‘ is, on a personal level, rather auto-referential, pointing back toward the medium of documentary itself, even verging on the meta. In defence of this, the laconic encounters of Katya with the supporting figures around her (besides the colleagues, we see her meeting with a very sensible social worker and her few friends from the orphanage) are rather ornamental to the story, speaking mostly on a first-layer encouragement, summarizing Katya’s favourite tune, ‘Everything will be fine’ (performed by the Ukrainian drag persona Verka Serduchka). That’s perhaps the capacity there, be it in a working class troubled with unresolved issues that are dragging everyone down; yet, simple and pure voices like that are undeniably essential in one’s life. (Or perhaps this evinces cultural differences from the context of Belarus and my distant view.) Whatever the case may be, ‘Welded Together’ is a clean example of the power of the camera, not only on what it does when it filters the reality in post-production, but mostly in how it lets the subject be represented at the moment of action.
The director is entering the house of Katya’s mother. For your consideration, picture a single-room apartment nearly entirely exhausted by the happenings of life (food preparation, hosting duvets and pillows, the baby’s toys, and drying-out clothes). The camera is set in between this intimacy, and almost stays comfortable until the wrong configuration of bodies is captured in the room. This peeping view is becoming literal only when Katya, holding her baby sister, is searching for her drunken-headed mother in a building apparently populated by sketchy (if not violent) individuals. But the danger for Amina, and the threat towards another lost childhood, is already residing in the apartment the camera is so comfortably keeping no distance from.
This difference, between the expectation of danger from the specificity of the night, outdoors view, always being the usual suspect, and the actualization of it next to the infant’s bed, is a difference Katya was privy to (but resisting) while the camera, for tension reasons I presume, denies it. And here is an interesting interplay, a remark if you prefer, of a documentary that places back (unwittingly, most likely) the agency of the subject to its original owner. But it also proves the individuality every story holds, in relation to the specificity of the person behind the story, and all the small and brilliant elements that make one’s struggle a story to be told.
★★★1/2
‘Welded Together’ had its world premiere in the International Competition at Sheffield DocFest 2025, where it was named the winner. It’s worth noting that the film was made without any state support, representing the resilience of independent filmmaking.
Documentary / Dir: Anastasiya Miroshnichenko / Cinematography: Pavel Romanenya / Production: Little Big Story, Stenola Production, Witfilm / International sales: Lightdox / France, Netherlands, Belgium
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