Ukrainians may have been disappointed that the powerful film “Winter on Fire, which captured indelible images of Ukraine’s Euro-Maidan-turned-Revolution of Dignity, did not win an Oscar. The work of a team of filmmakers, it was one of five films nominated for the Academy Award in the documentary feature category. (The prize for best documentary feature went to a film about the life of singer Amy Winehouse.) But the good news is that countless people – some media sources put the number at over 3 million as of mid-January – saw “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom,” thanks to heavy promotions by Netflix, which began streaming director Evgeny Afineevsky’s film back in October. Thus, viewers learned about the events of 2013-2014 in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian people’s heroic battle for freedom and dignity.
Ukrainian co-producers of the film Lina Klebanova and Halyna Sadomtseva, speaking at a press conference in Kyiv in January, said of the documentary that it presents “the position of the civic Maidan,” explaining, “It is a film about the dignity of people who were out on Maidan. That is why there are no politicians in it and the chronology of events is recreated through the testimony of the civic activists and vivid personal stories.” Mr. Afineevsky noted: “We were making the film not only as a historic document; it was also important for us to present the emotional component and values. We are glad that the film was well perceived by the Western audience that is often very far away from what was happening in Ukraine.”
As the Ukraine Crisis Media Center reported, the film is based on the footage captured by several TV channels and Radio Liberty, as well as amateur footage by Maidan volunteers. The production team reviewed over 1,500 hours of footage and conducted over 100 interviews with Maidan participants. An American of Russian descent, Mr. Afineevsky told Voice of America that he would not have been able to document the events of the Maidan without the help of social media and multimedia. “I started talking to the filmmakers, professionals and non-professionals who’d been there,” he said. “Because every person who had some vision or who had some piece of equipment – and I had usage of DSLRs [digital single-lens reflex cameras], camcorders, cellphones, GoPros, tablets, every possible technology – was helpful for us.”
We must note that there are also other great films about Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity and its ongoing war against combined Russian-“separatist” forces.
We wrote about filmmaker Damian Kolodiy’s “Freedom or Death” in our February 28 issue. His extraordinary documentary, which shows how the peaceful Maidan uprising has escalated into a war with Russia, is a very emotional experience for those of us who watched all these developments in our ancestral homeland, and an educational experience for those who may not be aware of what Ukraine is going through. The courageous young filmmaker was on the scene in Kyiv and traveled to Ukraine’s east in order to show the film to audiences there. (That in itself is the subject of a separate short documentary by Mr. Kolodiy.)
Then there’s “I Am a Ukrainian: Personal Stories of a Revolution” by filmmaker Ben Moses. A very thoughtfully produced documentary, it tells the story of the Maidan in an accessible and understandable manner – through the eyes of two participants: graduate student Yulia Marushevska (whose YouTube video titled “I Am a Ukrainian” went viral), and journalist/member of Parliament (now Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada) Andriy Shevchenko.
Also worth noting is “The Ukrainians” (with English subtitles), a film by directors Leonid Kanter and Ivan Yasniy that depicts the bravery and determination of volunteer battalions fighting in Ukraine’s east, including in the 2014 battle for Donetsk airport where the legendary “cyborgs” distinguished themselves. (See story on page 11.) At the screening here in Morris County, N.J., one of the volunteer commanders, in speaking about the film, stated: “Truth is our weapon.”
Those words underscore the inestimable value of such documentaries, which we expect will continue to reach ever-wider audiences worldwide. We salute these films and all involved in making them. They are the truth-tellers of our time.