Iryna Tsilyk: Last News

India’s All That Breathes followed up its victory at the Sundance Film Festival by winning top documentary honors in Cannes.

Lise Pedersen As the boundaries in cinema become increasingly fluid, emerging filmmakers whose films have been selected at the Cannes Film Festival have been discussing their journey from documentary to fiction at the Cannes Market’s Cannes Docs sidebar.Curated by the Documentary Assn. of Europe, the panel on Sunday brought together Ukrainian director Maksym Nakonechnyi, the director of Un Certain Regard title “Butterfly Vision,” and Erige Sehiri (“Railway Men”), the Tunisian director of “Under the Fig Leaves,” which had its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar.The titles are fiction debuts for Nakonechnyi and Sehiri, who are both experienced documentary filmmakers.Inspired by the conflict in Ukraine’s Eastern Donbas region that has been ongoing since 2014, “Butterfly Vision” is the story of a young Ukrainian soldier who returns home after being held captive for months and discovers she is pregnant after being raped by her Russian warden.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefA group of prominent Ukrainian filmmakers has called for the world to wake up to the threat posed to democracy following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the Central European country on Thursday.An open letter was circulated Friday by filmmakers including: Oleh Sentsov, director of “Rhino”; Valentyn Vasyanovych, director of “Reflection” and “Atlantis”; Maryna Er Gorbach, director of “Klondike”; Anna Machukh, executive director of the Ukrainian Film Academy and OIFF; Natalia Vorozhbyt, director of ‘Bad Roads”; Iryna Tsilyk, director of “The Earth is Blue as an Orange”; and Nariman Aliev, director of “Homeward.”“Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine. Now, more than ever, we need the help of the international community and anyone who understands that tomorrow war may be at your door.