The Pillars of Heaven: A Diplomat’s Odyssey for Peace in War-Torn Ukraine

Photo Courtesy of: Theatre of Life Productions

Snow had settled on the road to Kyiv, but the cold Nicholas Rooney felt had little to do with temperature. At that time, the war in Ukraine had only been smouldering for a few years, but already many in the media had begun to grow weary of it. However, Mr Rooney was not there for headlines, but for a mission of mercy, art and faith. Indeed his odyssey from Christmas Eve to the Epiphany ultimately turned out to be much more than that; it was a search for peace and the soul of a troubled nation cracked open by conflict.

Mr Rooney served as a diplomat for the European Union in Vienna at the start of the Ukrainian crisis in 2013. He knew the politics, the blame games, the theories. None of that prepared him for what he saw in the faces of people trying to celebrate Christmas under the grim visage of war. And yet, despite all the ill omens, his journey was marked by communion with those who continued to live, pray, and wait even under the threat of annihilation.

Over those 12 days, Nicholas Rooney documented what he could. Not in the style of television news or propaganda, but in fragments. He gathered enough of them to build his epic 2017 documentary, “The Pillars of Heaven.” It does not shout or instruct. It asks. It waits. It listens.

Cinema as Witness

“The Pillars of Heaven” is not conventionally structured. Mr Rooney avoids tidy narrative arcs, choosing instead to let the people he met speak through silence, through prayer, through gestures captured on camera but never explained. The film plays like a meditation, haunting and necessary. Viewers are asked to sit in the stillness, to resist the urge to look away. “I wanted to know if peace was still imaginable,” Nicholas Rooney says. “Not as a diplomatic slogan, but as something real—something still alive among people who had every reason to lose hope.”

The film did not have a grand premiere in Cannes or Berlin. It made its way through smaller festivals, won awards quietly, and reached viewers who often described it with words like “unshakable” or “unsettling.” But, he did not mind the modest reach. For him, truth told honestly had its own gravity. Shortly after this film he followed it with “A Father’s Sacrifice,” a short film exploring faith and sacrifice in a biblical setting. Together, these works form part of what Mr Rooney calls his “confessional cycle”—films that deal with the choices individuals make when belief is all that remains.

Searching for Peace Again

Years after his first winter journey, Nicholas Rooney is returning with a follow-up film on the same subject. The Careless Tomb doesn’t continue The Pillars of Heaven through exactly the same characters, but through the same thread of questions. Unfortunately, the war in Ukraine still persists and the tension between Russia and the West grows ever more dangerous. But what draws him back is the continual search for peace, for the trace of people—the chapel echoing with an old voice, the broken home still sheltering a family Bible, the soldier scribbling poems instead of commands. “If we do not look for peace in the small places, we will never find it in the big ones,” he says.

Theatre of Life Productions remains his platform. In a media landscape that often demands more and louder, Theatre of Life chooses restraint. It slows down. It leaves space. Nicholas Rooney shares, he listens, he asks the hard questions, and invites us to stay with them a little longer.

Viewers can access these works on Vimeo, Amazon, Google Play, VUDU, YouTube Movies, and more. His book on Alexander Dugin, a figure central to contemporary geopolitics, is available through Amazon and select distributors. Nicholas Rooney remains committed to telling stories that few others are willing to tell. Theatre of Life Productions remains the house where those stories begin.