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.
