By Eric Althoff
Ukraine has had a
tumultuous few years, with the invasion of the Crimea and internal struggles
that reached their height in 2013-14, as students took to the streets in
support of European integration and veering away from Soviet-style oppression.
“Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s
Fight for Freedom,” from director Evgeny Afineevsky, documents
the Ukrainian struggle to breathe freer air.
“For me the
movie is a little bit something about [interconnected] lives,”Mr. Afineevsky told The Washington
Times of his documentary. His aim, he said, was not only to “capture the
history of the uprising, but also [the film] can change people’s lives. That’s
one of the elements that’s made me want to make movies.”
Mr. Afineevsky was born in
Russian, raised in Ukraine and has lived
in the U.S. for 15 years. His film shows how students throughout Ukraine hit the
streets and engaged in mass protests in Kiev, calling for the resignation of
President Viktor Yanukovich. As the peaceful protesters become ever more
numerous, the president’s forces become ever more onerous in their response,
resulting in clashes that turned increasingly violent.
A friend of Mr. Afineevsky’s told him to
hustle to Ukraine to document
the uprising because it was “completely self-organized. Not like politicians
organized it, people organized it. It’s a people’s movement, a youth movement,”
he said.
Mr. Afineevsky spent months
embedded with the protesters in Kiev and elsewhere throughout the embattled
country as “history was happening.”
“There are
people who stood in cold weather, who stood there despite bullets flying over
our shoulders,” Mr. Afineevsky said of the
protesters.
The filmmaker said his film gives the Ukrainian people
a chance to tell their story and have it not filtered through Moscow-controlled
media outlets that might distort the tale of what happened during that crucial
time.
Mr. Afineevsky hopes that
audiences for his film, which is now nominated for the Oscar for best
documentary, will come to see the conflict through Ukrainian eyes.
“They’re heroes to me. It’s history,” he said.
Like all change, this one too will take time.
“For me, the events of those 93 days [engendered]
unity that I observed there, united all social castes together,” he said.
“Right now, it’s the second chapter.
“Every wound has different periods of healing,” the
director said. “They’re fighting and they’re united in fighting. I wish them
success.”
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