Ukrainian-made films have long tried to win the U.S. Academy Award, popularly known as the Oscar. The closest they came was in 1985, when a Soviet movie made by the Odesa Film Studio was nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
So it was a big deal when Elena Andreicheva, a Kyiv-born British filmmaker, won her Oscar for producing the Best Documentary Short Subject film “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)” at the 2020 awards ceremony in Los Angeles, California on Feb. 9.
The victory made her the first Ukrainian-born woman to win an Oscar. Paul Muni, a U.S. male actor born in Lviv, received the coveted prize for a lead acting role in 1937, and a Kremenchuk-born U.S. composer Dimitri Tiomkin won four Oscars for his music in 1950s. Anatoliy Kokush, a Ukrainian citizen born in Crimea, received two Oscars for his technical work with cameras in 2006.
The new Oscar victory came as surprise in Ukraine, since virtually nobody in the Ukrainian film community has heard of Andreicheva before her big break at the Oscars. And although Andreicheva, 35, has been a British citizen for over a decade, local media started publishing headlines like “Ukrainian won the Oscar” — out of pride for the ethnic Ukrainian filmmaker, of course.
“I don’t want to take away from that because I was born there, spent my formative years there. It’s really nice,” Andreicheva, whose parents still live in Kyiv, told the Kyiv Post.
The Oscar-winning film Andreicheva produced is set in yet another country — Afghanistan. It tells the stories of Afghan girls from impoverished neighborhoods who learn to read, write and skateboard at Skateistan, an international nonprofit schoolhouse in Kabul.
The girls were banned from going to school and playing sports under the Taliban Islamist regime until 2001, and social norms still often restrict them from doing so. Afghanistan is also still caught up in the conflict between the U.S.-supported Afghan government and the Taliban.
In the Oscars acceptance speech, Andreicheva only thanked the academy and gave the floor to Carol Dysinger, her co-awardee and the director of the film.
“(To get) here took a whole lot of not quitting and teachers… the kind of teachers at Skateistan, the school at the heart of the film. They teach girls courage to raise your hand, to say ‘I am here, I have something to say, and I’m gonna take that ramp — don’t try to stop me,’” Dysinger said.
“Keep Skateistan rolling!” Andreicheva added at the end of the acceptance speech.
Critics say that the film is an inspiring documentary about female empowerment and a great portrait of modern Afghanistan.
“The joy on the girls’ faces, their increasing confidence in everything they do, is wonderful to see — and the toughness of teachers who preserved their own skills in defiance of the Taliban regime is pretty awesome too. Carol Dysinger has done more than just record their story, however. Her multi-layered film is full of small observations which fill in the gaps to create a powerful portrait of time, place and cultural experience,” writes a critic for the Eye for Film review website.
Kyiv-born filmmaker Elena Andreicheva poses with the poster for “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl),” a short documentary film that she produced. The Oscar-winning film tells the stories of young girls learning to read, write and skateboard in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is a British citizen. (Elena Andreicheva / Instagram)
“Learning to Skateboard…” was commissioned by A&E Indie Films, a production arm of the U.S. A+E Networks. As the producer, Andreicheva did “all-encompassing” work: researched security and logistics in Afghanistan, ran the production and provided editorial support. She also spoke to the local people and families to find the stories of Afghan girls that the film could tell.
“It emerged for me that it wasn’t so much the natural conservatism that prevented many families from sending their girls to school or encouraging them to go further in their education. It was more the instability in the country due to the ongoing conflict, which doesn’t allow them to plan for the future,” Andreicheva told the Kyiv Post.
“Learning to Skateboard…” also won prizes as the best documentary short film from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), the International Documentary Association and the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival. It won its first award at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it premiered on April 28, 2019.
Andreicheva moved to London from Kyiv when she was 11 to attend a secondary school in Oxford not knowing much English. She enrolled in college after school, studying physics and then science journalism for her master’s degree. Starting in 2006, she began working for British and American TV.
Andreicheva researched and produced documentary TV series’ for the BBC, National Geographic and the Discovery Channel. These were often stories about people in hostile environments: doctors in Lesotho in southern Africa, prison gangs in the U.S. and men searching for mammoth tusks in Siberia.
“In my work, I’m obviously interested in women’s rights, but also any opportunity to relate human to human, especially when my characters are not accessible to the audience. You can’t meet them on the street, but I can introduce the audience to these people from a conflict zone or other hostile environments around the world,” Andreicheva says.
Aside from her television work, Andreicheva started on independent film projects. In 2013 she co-directed a short film about a retired immigrant from the Caribbean in London called “The World According to Mr O’Neil.” And in 2016, she directed a documentary short “Polish Go Home” about a Polish job-seeker returning home from London to reconnect with his family.
“I also enjoy getting inside the minds of people who may not be relatable or empathetic for the audience,” Andreicheva says. “That Polish man is somebody who many people wouldn’t want to meet on the streets of London. As an immigrant myself, I wanted the audience to meet this person and show the humanity in his story.”
The Academy Awards are among the most prestigious, and certainly best-known prizes in filmmaking. The winners are selected annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a professional honorary organization of around 6,000 motion picture professionals mostly based in the U.S.
After winning the Oscar, Andreicheva is developing a documentary project for the BBC, and is working on an independent film about the role animals can play in recovery from domestic violence.
While “Learning to Skateboard…” was in post-production, she also became a mother. When asked whether she will buy her son a skateboard later on, she says that now she must.
“It’s very good for their balance and their courage. So yes, that’s a yes!”
“Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)” is available for streaming at Hulu, A&E, Sling TV, Fubo TV and Philo subscription-based video services.
