In summer 2014, sunflower fields and coalmines in Eastern Ukraine turn into a 12 square kilometre crime scene. Russian forces shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 people on board. This attack, and its possible ramifications for the then on-going war in Donbas, was immediately denied by the Russian government and media. Director Roman Liubyi uses a wealth of visual material and individual testimonies to craft this multi-layered, artful yet evidence-driven examination of a turning point in recent world history.

The metaphor “iron butterflies” refers to the BUK rocket-head filled with butterfly-shaped shrapnel pieces that penetrated the front of the airplane and were found in the pilots’ bodies, implicating the state responsible for a war crime that remains unpunished.