In Oscar-Shortlisted ‘Once Upon A Time In Ukraine,’ Kids Try To Cope With Devastating War

deadline.com:

Ruslan, an 8-year-old boy living in a war-scarred village in Ukraine, drops a line into a pool of water and waits patiently for a bite.

His fishing hole is manmade. “A missile landed here and made a pit,” he mentions calmly in the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Once Upon a Time in Ukraine. “And then there was rain and… it flooded and made a big pond.” The short film, constructed as a series of vignettes about children growing up in war zones across Ukraine, is directed by Oscar nominee Betsy West (RBG). “Ruslan’s got his stick, and he’s fishing in a pond made out of a Russian bomb attack… He’s hoping that some fish had somehow gotten in there,” West says. “I mean, it’s so sweet.

That’s what really moved me when I saw this footage, was just the incredible way in which kids process these horrible circumstances.” The film project originated with producer Earle Mack, a filmmaker, businessman and former U.S.

Ambassador to Finland, who traces his roots to Ukraine. “He went to the border shortly after Russia invaded. And he was really impressed with the courage of Ukrainian people but also struck by the experience of children — refugees, or just children caught behind the frontline,” West explains. “So, he commissioned a camera crew, turned out to be an extremely talented camera crew, to go all over the country and film with families and with children… Earle contacted me and asked me to look at some of this material.” “You see war footage and you see scenes of devastation [in other films],” West continues. “I’ve never really seen these kinds of more quiet moments of children behind the frontlines, talking about their experiences in such a moving way and showing the kind of creativity and resilience, sometimes denial of what’s