About Matt Groom
Matt Groom comes from the UK and is an IFSC World Cup and Olympic commentator. He was a long-time presenter on the YouTube channel EpicTV Climbing Daily, but left a few months ago to pursue new journalistic challenges.
Where did the idea for this film come from, and how and where did you encounter the war in Ukraine?
The idea had been on my mind for a while because, as a World Cup commentator, I had covered Ukrainian athletes. Then I read that a new climbing gym had opened in Odessa. I didn’t understand it. Why would someone open a climbing gym in the middle of a war? Who would even want to go there? And then I also heard a rumor that Ukrainian climbers were being asked to return to their country to compete in a national competition.
One of those climbers is Danyil Boldyrev. He had left Ukraine at the beginning of the war and then won a gold medal at the 2022 European Championships in Munich...
Yes, Danyil’s victory was a very emotional moment. Afterwards, I asked him if he would go to Ukraine for this competition. He didn’t want to, but he offered to accompany me there.
Why did you say: “Yes, let’s do it”? Why did you want to go to Ukraine?
asked myself: How does this make sense? On one hand, there’s a war—a terrible, miserable thing. On the other, there’s climbing, which, from my own experience, I associate mainly with positive things. I found this clash of opposites intriguing. That’s why I wanted to go. At the same time, I struggled with the question: Does it matter? Sure, it’s great that they’re still climbing there, but who cares, and does it even matter?
These questions are also at the heart of your film—and now “Climbing Never Die” is showing on the Reel Rock tour. How did that come about?
At the end of August 2022, Danyil won his gold medal, and I knew I had to travel to Ukraine with him. But I needed some support for this project, so I called Reel Rock at the beginning of October. They told me they were interested in the story. So, I wrote a rough, improvised pitch to present my idea to them. I had no idea what I would find in Ukraine. The arrangement was that I would go there first, and we would decide afterward if my footage was usable.
How did Danyil support you in making the film?
Danyil was fantastic. He had my back throughout the filming process. I didn’t have official permission to be there. In fact, I didn’t get my press pass until I was already back home—three months too late! A few times, it got tricky because I was filming destroyed buildings without authorization. Danyil acted as a buffer between me and the police.
At the climbing competition in Kyiv, you met Ksenia Zakharova, the stepdaughter of mountaineer Oleksander Zakolodny, a legend in the Ukrainian climbing community, who was fighting on the front lines at that time. She asked you to deliver a message to him. How did you manage to travel there?
I asked Danyil, “Danyil, Ksenia’s father is on the front lines. Can we find him somewhere out there?” He took a deep breath, stepped away to make some calls, and when he came back, he said, “Yeah, okay, we can do that.” It was incredible what he was able to pull off! Without him, nothing would have been possible. I don’t speak Ukrainian, and in that country, especially during wartime, everything runs on connections. Danyil took care of everything, even putting himself at risk. This project meant so much to him.
Were you able to plan anything in advance under those circumstances, or did most things just happen on the spot?
One of the interesting aspects of this film is that an enormous part of it was pure luck. Meeting Ksenia at the climbing gym wasn’t planned. But this 16-year-old girl immediately caught my interest. It was remarkable how open she and the other Ukrainian climbers were, how they let me into their lives, even though I was just a visitor passing through. They wanted to share their stories. They wanted to show the world what was happening in Ukraine. I think there’s a sense there that Europe sometimes forgets about Ukraine or doesn’t understand what’s happening. And that’s probably true. The war has been going on for so long. But if people watch the film and understand the stories behind it, then I’ve accomplished a lot.
In the film, it seems like the climbers are doing everything they can to make their climbing gyms a refuge from the war. But is there still a sense of normalcy in Ukraine?
Yes, there is a sense of normalcy, but it’s miserable: It’s cold, dark, and the power constantly goes out. Without regular electricity, not much can function—there’s no internet, no TV, and no future. It wears you down. The air raid sirens and attacks on the city were constant, but you don’t see much of that in the film. I filmed the intense wailing every time, but only a fraction of it made it into the final cut. At some point, the sound just loses its threatening effect.
Climbing Never Die is part of Reel Rock 18.