Three new documentaries tell
the story of Ukraine's path from student protests to entrenched war against
Russian-separatist forces in the Donbas. The films take on the challenge of
condensing a complex struggle into less than two hours of footage, aiming to
educate a largely Western audience.
U.S.-based Russian filmmaker
Evgeny Afineevsky’s “Winter on Fire” will be available on Netflix starting Oct.
9. Afineevsky arrived in Kyiv shortly after the first protests began and stayed
for 93 days, chronicling the increasingly dramatic and violent story over the
winter of 2013/14.
Netflix has received two Oscar
nominations for earlier documentaries. The first, for 2013’s “The Square,”
parallels “Winter on Fire,” covering the 2011 Egyptian uprising that culminated
in Hosni Mubarak leaving power.
Speaking to reporters at the
movie’s Venice Film Festival premiere, Afineevsky said he hopes his documentary
shows that the potential for change is in the hands of young people.
Ben Moses’ “I am a Ukrainian”
also begins on Maidan, but follows two protesters out of the square and into
public life in post-revolutionary Ukraine.
The U.S. director arrived in
Kyiv in November 2013 to see his friend, Andriy Shevchenko, rumored to be in
line to be the next Ukrainian ambassador to Canada. Instead, the first person
he met in Kyiv was Yulia Marushevska, a student and EuroMaidan Revolution
activist who caused him to change all his plans. She is now a deputy governor
in her native Odesa Oblast.
“When I arrived in Kyiv,
Marushevska met me and said, ‘Drop your bags in the hotel, bring your camera
and come with me! We’re going to a revolution!’” Moses told the Kyiv Post. “I had
no idea what she was talking about, but I followed her. That’s what people do
when Yulia speaks. She is a natural leader. When we arrived at the Maidan,
there were more than 500,000 people there. I had never seen anything like that
before, ever. A peaceful protest. I started filming.”
In January 2014, when the
first two protesters were killed by police, Moses was in the U.S.
Marushevska sent him a video,
shot on the Maidan, to inform him about the pain every Ukrainian patriot felt.
Moses uploaded it to YouTube. It went viral. After 13 days, “I Am a Ukrainian”
had been seen by seven million people. Inspired, Moses decided to create a
documentary.
“I took my camera and a bag
with blue and yellow ribbons all over it, as I followed Yulia and Andriy during
and after the revolution, to the United States and Canada, to Georgia, Norway,
Germany and France,” Moses said.
For U.S.-Ukrainian director
Damian Kolodiy, the beating of student protestors by Berkut riot police in
December 2013 was the catalyst for his documentary “Freedom or Death.”
“Once the contract of not
using violence was broken by the government, it encouraged escalation,” Kolodiy
told the Kyiv Post. “That’s why I start my film with that footage of the
students. I want the audience to respond with the indignation that Ukrainians
felt.”
Kolodiy documented
the 2004 Orange Revolution in a film entitled “The Orange Chronicles.” He sees
this new film as a sequel, recording the continuation of
the same struggle.
Kolodiy narrates “Freedom or
Death,” using news clips and graphics to illustrate geopolitical points. “I
wanted it to have a proper background and framing for Americans. I’ve seen a
lot of films of Maidan that don’t really do a good job of explaining things,”
he said.
Kolodiy's careful
use of perspective is designed to make the viewer feel part of the action,
standing amongst protesters in a tent on Maidan. “It’s not someone saying
‘this is how it was’ -- you’re just in it and you’re experiencing it. I wanted
to immerse the viewer in what it felt like to be there at that time,” Kolodiy
explains.
“Winter on Fire” premiered at
the Venice Film Festival. Early reviews praised the film’s scope and emotional
impact, but criticized its exclusion of far-right influences on Maidan. In
highlighting the brutality of the authorities and the authenticity of the
protests, it may have sought to excessively airbrush Ukraine’s image.
Moses’ 90-minute documentary
provides an educational introduction to Ukrainian history and movingly portrays
its two patriotic heroes, but is bogged down by pomposity.
“Freedom or Death” will seem
simplistic to an audience already well-informed about Ukraine. However, the
visceral impact of its conclusion is undeniable, and the filmmaker presents his
information methodically and engagingly, vindicating its distributors’ label of
a “forensic masterpiece.”
In an apparent
response to the wave of Western productions, the Kremlin-run RT channel
broadcast its own film called “Mosaic of Facts: How They Tell You What To
Believe” on Sept 11. The film follows Miguel Francis-Santiago
around America in late 2014, exploring the media’s representation of Ukraine.
Intercutting a voiceover
questioning who is to blame for the violence in the east with footage of an elderly
woman crying “Damn you Poroshenko!”, the documentary sets out to present
Western reporting as biased, hypocritical and factually incorrect. “Mosaic of
Facts” repeats the Kremlin line that the revolution that ended Viktor
Yanukovych’s presidency on Feb. 22, 2014, was a neo-Nazi coup.
In conclusion, the film claims
that Russia is being demonised because its economic strength poses a threat to
the supremacy of the American dollar.
The Ukrainian documentaries
may not be perfect. But in the information war raging between Vladmir Putin and
the West, they are an important part of the nation’s defenses.
“Winter on Fire”
will be available to Netflix subscribers from Oct. 9. Details of the
distribution of “I Am A Ukrainian” have yet to be released. “Freedom or Death”
will be screened at 8 p.m. on Sept. 19 at Kyiv Kinopanorama, 19 Shota
Rustavelli St.
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