Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa’s filmography could be neatly divided into three genre buckets: feature films (the last two were Donbass and A Gentle Creature, both from the last decade), documentaries compiled entirely from archive sources (The Kiev Trial), and documentaries about current events, filmed by Loznitsa himself and small crews. The most well-known example from the last category would be Maidan (2014), a stirring, astringent, mosaic-like portrait of the demonstrations against Russian-supported president Viktor Yanukovych in Kiev’s main city square in 2013-14, which eventually devolved into violence.
With his latest, The Invasion, Loznitsa gives Maidan a cinematic sibling, a work that bears a strong family resemblance given its urgency and majestic, tragic sweep as it builds a portrait of a nation at war. But while the high-vérité lack of voiceover, identifying subtitles or editorializing follows the same modus operandi deployed with Maidan, there’s an even stronger sense here...
With his latest, The Invasion, Loznitsa gives Maidan a cinematic sibling, a work that bears a strong family resemblance given its urgency and majestic, tragic sweep as it builds a portrait of a nation at war. But while the high-vérité lack of voiceover, identifying subtitles or editorializing follows the same modus operandi deployed with Maidan, there’s an even stronger sense here...
- 5/18/2024
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Less than two weeks after 20 Days in Mariupol won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, another important film about Ukraine has bowed on the world stage.
A Poem for Little People, directed by Ivan Sautkin, held its international premiere Thursday at Cph:dox in Copenhagen. It screens again on Saturday. In cinéma vérité style, the film documents the most vulnerable people on front lines of the war in Ukraine, and the volunteers of an evacuation team who risk their lives to save them.
“Through its two parallel plotlines, the film follows the exploits of a volunteer evacuation team in the front lines of Eastern Ukraine, led by young, precociously stoic Anton, as well as the wartime daily lives and unlikely friendship of two elderly women – pragmatic Zinaida and dreamy, starry-eyed Taisia – who decided to stay at their homes in the now de-occupied Chernihiv region,” according to a synopsis of the documentary.
A Poem for Little People, directed by Ivan Sautkin, held its international premiere Thursday at Cph:dox in Copenhagen. It screens again on Saturday. In cinéma vérité style, the film documents the most vulnerable people on front lines of the war in Ukraine, and the volunteers of an evacuation team who risk their lives to save them.
“Through its two parallel plotlines, the film follows the exploits of a volunteer evacuation team in the front lines of Eastern Ukraine, led by young, precociously stoic Anton, as well as the wartime daily lives and unlikely friendship of two elderly women – pragmatic Zinaida and dreamy, starry-eyed Taisia – who decided to stay at their homes in the now de-occupied Chernihiv region,” according to a synopsis of the documentary.
- 3/22/2024
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Paul Manafort worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, was a central figure in Robert Mueller’s investigation into the campaign’s ties to Russia, and ultimately served prison time for a slew of financial crimes. Trump pardoned Manafort before he left office, and now wants to bring him onto his campaign to retake the White House, according to The Washington Post.
Manafort, a longtime lobbyist and fixture in Republican politics, served as the chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign before being ousted from the role that August. His ties to Russia drew the attention of Mueller,...
Manafort, a longtime lobbyist and fixture in Republican politics, served as the chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign before being ousted from the role that August. His ties to Russia drew the attention of Mueller,...
- 3/18/2024
- by Ryan Bort
- Rollingstone.com
Eugene Hütz, founder and frontman with U.S. gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello, would likely to have ended up a painter wearing “dirty pants and long hair” had his parents not left the Soviet Union when he was 16.
“I would probably have become a painter, as there was more of a path paved in that in my family,” he says. “I was drawing most of my childhood and my uncle – Mikhail Mykolayev – is a pretty well-known painter who still lives in Kyiv.”
Fresh from playing a brief, impromptu solo guitar gig at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, following the international premiere of a new documentary about the band, “Scream of My Blood: A Gogol Bordello Story,” Hütz fits the bill, although his khaki cargo pants are not paint spattered.
The singer was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, but the Hütz family left years of Communist oppression behind and moved to Western...
“I would probably have become a painter, as there was more of a path paved in that in my family,” he says. “I was drawing most of my childhood and my uncle – Mikhail Mykolayev – is a pretty well-known painter who still lives in Kyiv.”
Fresh from playing a brief, impromptu solo guitar gig at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, following the international premiere of a new documentary about the band, “Scream of My Blood: A Gogol Bordello Story,” Hütz fits the bill, although his khaki cargo pants are not paint spattered.
The singer was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, but the Hütz family left years of Communist oppression behind and moved to Western...
- 7/8/2023
- by Nick Holdsworth
- Variety Film + TV
When he began working on his sophomore documentary feature, “Iron Butterflies,” in 2019, Ukrainian filmmaker Roman Liubyi said he was “making the film as a warning, before the Third World War.”
The film, which world premiered at Sundance, follows the Russian disinformation campaign surrounding the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine in 2014, a tragedy that was determined by a Dutch court in Nov. 2022 to have been caused by a missile supplied by the Russian military to separatists in Eastern Ukraine.
Many Ukrainians thought the tragic event, which killed 289 civilian passengers and crew, would serve as a wake-up call to Europe and the U.S., which had largely turned a blind eye to Russia’s meddling in the region, said the director. But the years dragged on and the long-running conflict in Donbas retreated from the headlines — until an increasingly emboldened Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale assault on Ukraine last year.
The film, which world premiered at Sundance, follows the Russian disinformation campaign surrounding the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine in 2014, a tragedy that was determined by a Dutch court in Nov. 2022 to have been caused by a missile supplied by the Russian military to separatists in Eastern Ukraine.
Many Ukrainians thought the tragic event, which killed 289 civilian passengers and crew, would serve as a wake-up call to Europe and the U.S., which had largely turned a blind eye to Russia’s meddling in the region, said the director. But the years dragged on and the long-running conflict in Donbas retreated from the headlines — until an increasingly emboldened Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale assault on Ukraine last year.
- 3/1/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Last November, in a gesture that the actor himself described as “a symbolic, silly thing,” Sean Penn gifted one of his two Academy Awards to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to mark his emotional investment in the country as they continue to fight Russia’s invasion — attracting widespread mockery from social media and the entertainment press in the process. That this moment is not included in Penn and co-director Aaron Kaufman’s “Superpower,” a disordered, distinctly Penn-centric account of recent Ukrainian history, counts as one of the film’s few moments of self-awareness. As far as the rest goes, anyone watching this doc right after emerging from a two-year coma could be forgiven for identifying the Hollywood veteran as a key player in the conflict.
The sincerity of Penn’s interest in, and concern for, Ukraine is not in doubt. Having begun shooting on the ground in 2021, some months before war...
The sincerity of Penn’s interest in, and concern for, Ukraine is not in doubt. Having begun shooting on the ground in 2021, some months before war...
- 2/18/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Roughly three quarters of the way into Superpower, the documentary about the war in Ukraine directed by Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman, the Oscar-winning actor displays a fixed-blade knife while traveling by car through the embattled country. He jokes to the camera, “All of Ukraine should feel safe now that I’m armed.” He adds, holding up fists clenched like a boxer’s, “Plus, I’ve got these.”
Related Story Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy Delivers Impassioned Speech At Berlin Opening Night; Sean Penn Says Will Of The People Is “Just Getting Stronger” Related Story Berlin Review: Emily Atef's 'Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything' Related Story Riz Ahmed & Lily James To Star In David Mackenzie Thriller 'Relay' For Thunder Road, Sigma & Black Bear: EFM Hot Package
It’s a rare moment of levity in a film that otherwise unfolds with deadly seriousness, for appropriate reasons: for...
Related Story Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy Delivers Impassioned Speech At Berlin Opening Night; Sean Penn Says Will Of The People Is “Just Getting Stronger” Related Story Berlin Review: Emily Atef's 'Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything' Related Story Riz Ahmed & Lily James To Star In David Mackenzie Thriller 'Relay' For Thunder Road, Sigma & Black Bear: EFM Hot Package
It’s a rare moment of levity in a film that otherwise unfolds with deadly seriousness, for appropriate reasons: for...
- 2/17/2023
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: France tv distribution has boarded international sales on French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Lévy and director-photographer Marc Roussel’s documentary Slava Ukraini and will launch the title at the EFM.
The film documents the situation in Ukraine in the final months of 2022 as Russia’s brutal invasion of the country ground on.
Arp Sélection will theatrically release the feature doc in France on February 22, just two days before the first anniversary of the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.
Slava Ukraini visits the conflict’s hotspots through a war diary documenting trips to Kharkiv in the frontline region of the Donbas as well as the strategic Black Sea-Dnieper River port of Kherson, in the aftermath of the city’s liberation on November 11, 2022.
It bears witness to the ravages of war through the testimonies of soldiers, chronicles of the frontline and portraits of civilians, and shares the struggle of the Ukrainian people.
The film documents the situation in Ukraine in the final months of 2022 as Russia’s brutal invasion of the country ground on.
Arp Sélection will theatrically release the feature doc in France on February 22, just two days before the first anniversary of the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.
Slava Ukraini visits the conflict’s hotspots through a war diary documenting trips to Kharkiv in the frontline region of the Donbas as well as the strategic Black Sea-Dnieper River port of Kherson, in the aftermath of the city’s liberation on November 11, 2022.
It bears witness to the ravages of war through the testimonies of soldiers, chronicles of the frontline and portraits of civilians, and shares the struggle of the Ukrainian people.
- 2/14/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Evgeny Afineevsky released his Oscar-nominated Netflix documentary Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom in 2015, documenting the Euromaidan protests the previous year in the city of Kyiv that led to the collapse of the Russia-aligned Azarov government and the removal and exile of Putin ally Viktor Yanukovych as Ukraine’s president. Afineevsky returns to Venice this year with Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, a follow-up that details the real stories of the people of Ukraine as they continue their fight against Russia’s invasion of their country.
Ahead of the film’s premiere Wednesday, Afineevsky sat with Deadline to explain his urgency to continue to document Ukraine’s struggle, noting that media coverage of the ongoing conflict has died down since the initial invasion in the early part of 2022. “If we continue to neglect what’s going on, we risk this becoming World War Three,” Afineevsky cautions.
Ahead of the film’s premiere Wednesday, Afineevsky sat with Deadline to explain his urgency to continue to document Ukraine’s struggle, noting that media coverage of the ongoing conflict has died down since the initial invasion in the early part of 2022. “If we continue to neglect what’s going on, we risk this becoming World War Three,” Afineevsky cautions.
- 9/6/2022
- by Joe Utichi
- Deadline Film + TV
On the eve of the 79th Venice Film Festival, where his powerful Ukraine war documentary “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” will premiere out of competition on Sept. 7, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky was in a frantic race against time.
Footage was still being shot in Ukraine into the second week of August, with Afineevsky only completing the film on Aug. 31 — the same day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the A-list celebrities and foreign press at the festival’s opening ceremony, urging the world not to forget the war in Ukraine with the impassioned plea: “Don’t turn your back to us.”
While Hollywood stars like Julianne Moore, Adam Driver and Tessa Thompson have lit up the red carpet in Venice and Timothée Chalamet has sparked Chala-mania on the Lido, Afineevsky has been working ‘round-the-clock to make sure the world is still watching Ukraine.
“It’s important not...
Footage was still being shot in Ukraine into the second week of August, with Afineevsky only completing the film on Aug. 31 — the same day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the A-list celebrities and foreign press at the festival’s opening ceremony, urging the world not to forget the war in Ukraine with the impassioned plea: “Don’t turn your back to us.”
While Hollywood stars like Julianne Moore, Adam Driver and Tessa Thompson have lit up the red carpet in Venice and Timothée Chalamet has sparked Chala-mania on the Lido, Afineevsky has been working ‘round-the-clock to make sure the world is still watching Ukraine.
“It’s important not...
- 9/4/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
An intense portrait of personal obsession — à la “Black Swan” — set at the time of 2013’s Maidan Uprising, “Olga” anticipates so much of the current situation in Ukraine. Elie Grappe’s prescient debut begins and ends in a country whose people united against corruption, successfully ousting Russian-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych, though the story takes place mostly in Switzerland. Even before Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion, “Olga” was an incredibly strong film, but now, the Kino Lorber release should be considered essential viewing for art-house audiences.
If all the bad news from that corner of the world bums you out, give the movie 10 minutes to prove itself. Without spoiling the shock, suffice to say that Olympics-bound gymnast Olga is single-mindedly focused on her sport, practicing the difficult Jaeger move with her coach. But in the ride home with her similarly monomaniacal mother — a high-profile investigative journalist for a newspaper critical of...
If all the bad news from that corner of the world bums you out, give the movie 10 minutes to prove itself. Without spoiling the shock, suffice to say that Olympics-bound gymnast Olga is single-mindedly focused on her sport, practicing the difficult Jaeger move with her coach. But in the ride home with her similarly monomaniacal mother — a high-profile investigative journalist for a newspaper critical of...
- 6/25/2022
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
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