A New Documentary Shows The Human Stories Behind Russia’s War On Ukraine

The new film by Oscar-nominated director Evgeny Afineevsky––Freedom On Fire: Ukraine’s Fight For Freedom––premiered this September at the Venice International Film Festival. This fall it came to the United States with a showing at the DocNYC film festival and at Cinema Village in New York City, and it continues to make the rounds of screenings in theaters.

The opening scene is unlike anything one might expect from a documentary about Russia’s recent attempt to destroy Ukraine: young, Ukrainian stand-up comedians running through their acts. Quickly, it becomes apparent the comedians are performing in front of an audience laughing at war jokes in a dark bunker in Sumy, a Ukrainian city under missile attacks.

“The story is not just about the war in the trenches, we show the stories of the people,” said Afineevsky, 50, an LA-based Israeli-American director, whose family left its home in Kazan, Russia, for Israel in the 1990s.

In New York, we met with Afineevsky and one of his cinematographers, Dmytro Kozatskyi, 27, the head of the press service of the Azov Battalion, and a member of Ukraine’s National Guard. Kozatskyi turned his video skills to good use when, together with hundreds of men, women, and children residing in Mariupol, he hid in the Azovstal steel factory under siege this spring for almost three months, documenting what happened there. Kozatskyi captured rare photos and video before he was taken prisoner by Russian forces and spent four months in captivity. He was released in the prisoner exchange on September 21. His footage of the Azovstal under siege, including Anna Zaitseva––a young woman with a newborn baby growing up without seeing the skies and sun––is one of the stories that make up the narrative of the film.

Afineevsky is a seasoned, award-nominated director of a number of documentary films, such as Winter On Fire, Cries From Syria, Franscesco, and others. In Freedom On Fire:Ukraine’s Fight For Freedom he took what millions of people see as a headline, a phone-screen size video––and enlarged that onto the big screen, breaking through the news and statistics to personal stories with human faces and voices behind each one. Viewers witness many uncomfortable, very real details that regular war coverage does not provide: the terror in the eyes of Ukrainians when their apartment buildings are being bombed; their blood and tears; their names, their voices, their personal details.

Shot in multiple locations in Ukraine––Kharkiv, Kyiv, Sumy and others; edited by about ten editors around the world in almost real-time, as the war unfolded––the film depicts civilians hiding in bomb shelters, musicians playing violins amidst air raids underground, destroyed homes, entire neighborhoods burned and wrecked by Russian shelling, and so much more. The characters appearing in the film are reputable, and some even recognizable. To name a few, Evgeniy Maloletka, an award-winning photojournalist; Nataliia Nagorna, a Ukrainian war correspondent for the main television channel 1+1; as well as those who are behind the cameras, documenting on the ground in various parts of Ukraine, such as, Oleksandr Yanovsky, a videographer of over two decades, shooting scenes in his native Kharkiv.

The stories uncover the true essence of the war: Ukrainian people want to live in an independent Ukraine and will continue to sacrifice their lives for their homeland. Afineevsky, whose mission is not only to show the human stories behind the war, but also to fight Russian propaganda, says: “I hope that the movie will make some people who are brainwashed to think. Russia is not fighting just Ukraine; Russia is fighting the world, and Ukraine is standing in the way.”

At one point in the film, Afegneevsky features footage of destroyed Ukrainian towns, dead civilians killed by the Russians, Ukrainian people living in disbelief that someone can so brutally bomb entire neighborhoods and kill civilians; juxtaposed with Moscow’s Red Square, the Russian generals, the Russian army parading to cheering crowds, and regular Russian people in a cult-like trance screaming that the Russian army will be victorious and fight until the end.

The film recounts how Putin’s regime, as the world watched, turned Russia into a fascist state over time. It also shows how Ukraine made its choice in 2014, following its pivotal Maidan Revolution, to follow a democratic path to forge deeper bonds with Europe. And now, after being subjected to a horrific war, war crimes, and daily atrocities; Ukraine is fighting for its own land, sovereignty, and a democratic future for its children.

Russian apologists, Putin appeasers and genocide deniers may not change their stance after seeing this very real, credible film, shot by independent cinematographers and journalists all over Ukraine. However, for everyone else, this film shows why Ukrainians will not consider ‘peace talks’ with Russia until they can speak from a position of strength. The war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine are unimaginable and the world needs to see what’s happening in the heart of Europe. Once one watches Freedom On Fire, it can’t be unseen.