‘All Is Well’ Filmmakers on Chronicling the Life of Ukrainian Refugees in Amsterdam Amid Far-Right Rise: ‘Our Friends Ask How This Could Happen’

variety.com:

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor Dutch documentarians Peter Lataster and Petra Lataster-Czisch are veterans on their home turf of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam — where they won Best Dutch Film in 2014 and 2022 — but this year brought a career highlight for the renowned duo: introducing their latest doc “All Is Well” at the beautiful Tuschinski cinema alongside 70 Ukrainian refugees, including the subjects of their film. “All Is Well,” which had its world premiere at IDFA in the Signed strand, begins with the opening of a new shelter for Ukrainian refugees on the outskirts of Amsterdam.

There, the duo finds three babushkas, older Ukrainian matriarchs displaced by the war, and whose lives are marked by a complicated dichotomy between the need to survive and rebuild and the overwhelming grief of forced displacement.

Speaking about the initial inspiration for the documentary, Peter mentioned the “right-wing narrative” that the Netherlands “can’t take care of refugees and must send them home.” “There is also a sentiment that people are ‘getting tired of the war in Ukraine,’ which is completely crazy.

The people who are tired of the war are the people in Ukraine. So we wanted to show what the daily life of a refugee in this country looked like – the ups and downs of being a displaced person.” “We have chosen elderly women, three babushkas, because they have a very high status in Ukrainian society,” adds Petra of their subjects. “They take care of the grandchildren and the household.