The ‘Lost Opportunity’ Behind Ukrainian Sundance Doc ‘Iron Butterflies,’ About the Russian Downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17
variety.comChristopher Vourlias When he began working on his sophomore documentary feature, “Iron Butterflies,” in 2019, Ukrainian filmmaker Roman Liubyi said he was “making the film as a warning, before the Third World War.” The film, which world premiered at Sundance, follows the Russian disinformation campaign surrounding the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine in 2014, a tragedy that was determined by a Dutch court in Nov.
2022 to have been caused by a missile supplied by the Russian military to separatists in Eastern Ukraine. Many Ukrainians thought the tragic event, which killed 289 civilian passengers and crew, would serve as a wake-up call to Europe and the U.S., which had largely turned a blind eye to Russia’s meddling in the region, said the director.
But the years dragged on and the long-running conflict in Donbas retreated from the headlines — until an increasingly emboldened Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale assault on Ukraine last year.
In the wake of that invasion, “there was no point of a warning — it was already happening,” Liubyi said. “Now it’s a story about lost opportunity.
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