Hot Docs Sidebar Made in Ukraine Boosts Ukrainian Docs, Market Action, Dialogue

Elizabeth Wagmeister Senior Correspondent A Ukrainian influencer was pulled off the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, after she covered herself in fake blood on the steps up to the Palais, staging a protest in support of Ukraine. This year, the city of Cannes banned protests along the Croisette and its surroundings during the festival. Ilona Chernobai — a Ukrainian fitness trainer with one million followers on Instagram — walked the red carpet at Cannes in a blue and yellow dress, symbolizing the Ukraine flag. As she got to the stairs, she pulled bags of fake blood from underneath her dress and poured them over herself. Security immediately grabbed her and escorted her off the carpet.

Chernobai walked for the premiere of Just Philippot's Acide wearing a blue and yellow gown—the colors of the Ukraine flag—without incident, seemingly invited to the event. But when she reached the steps leading up to the screening, she removed two packets of fake blood from her cleavage and broke them over her head as an apparent protest against her country's invasion by Russia.

The Cannes Film Festival red carpet is usually accustomed to protests and demonstrations. Last year there were multiple.

“It felt like this bloody world needed some love stories now,” Fallen Leaves director Aki Kaurismäki said of his Palme d’Or contender this afternoon.

Sean Penn will star in the Ukranian war movie “War Through the Eyes of Animals,” TheWrap has confirmed. The picture, due for release in late 2023 or early 2024, is part of a nine-part anthology that will be helmed by nine Ukrainian filmmakers concerning the ongoing conflict against Russia.

Christopher Vourlias XYZ Films has acquired North American sales rights to “StayOnline,” from Ukrainian director Anton Skrypets, which uses the innovative Screenlife format to tell the story of a young Kyiv woman who risks her life to help a boy whose parents have gone missing after the Russian invasion. “StayOnline” was co-written by Skrypets and Eva Strelnikova, who also served as director of photography. It was produced by Marina Kvasova and Alla Lypovetska of the Organization of Ukrainian Producers (OUP). The film begins when a young woman volunteering in Kyiv is given one of the thousands of laptops donated by ordinary Ukrainians to support the war effort. She’s asked to install a sensitive military application and deliver the laptop to her brother serving on the frontline.

Every year, on the third Thursday of May, Ukraine celebrates the Day of Vyshyvanka. The occasion pays tribute to the country's original folk traditions and sees citizens wearing embroidered Ukrainian clothes, including the Vyshyvanka, a loose-fitting shirt, which is often in black or white and features geometric patterns stitched around the edges.  This year’s celebration was seen as a symbol of national unity against the Russian invasion.

Christopher Vourlias With a Ukrainian cinema union issuing a strident call on Thursday for participants of the Cannes Film Market to halt all business with Russia rather than support “terrorism,” industry professionals are again weighing the moral cost of working in the country against the financial upside of releasing films in the lucrative Russian market. Many U.S. and foreign companies quietly continued to do business with the pariah state after the Ukraine invasion or resumed the dealmaking that was put on pause once the war began. Honoring contracts that were signed before fighting commenced or working through third-party distributors in other jurisdictions, they’ve ensured that a steady stream of foreign content — including Lionsgate’s “John Wick: Chapter 4” and A24’s Oscar-winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — continues to reach Russian movie theaters.

Christopher Vourlias Ukraine’s cinema union issued an open letter on Thursday calling on participants of the Cannes Film Market to halt all business with Russia. The statement asserted that releasing films in Putin’s pariah state is akin to “support for terrorism” amid its ongoing war of aggression in the Eastern European nation. The letter, which was written by the Ukrainian League of Cinemas, singled out a number of leading international indie distributors and sales agents — including Lionsgate, STXInternational, FilmNation, A24 and Pathé — whose films have been released in Russia since the start of the war. “Continuing to do business in Russia means supporting the Russian terrorist state with taxes,” the statement read. “These taxes are then turned into weapons with which peaceful Ukrainian cities are destroyed, and our friends and colleagues are killed and maimed.”

Ukraine war and the momentous burst of rebellion against the Iranian regime prompted by the death of Mahsa Amini are reverberating profoundly at the Cannes Film Festival. At the festival’s opening ceremony on Tuesday night, legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve paid tribute to the war’s victims by reciting a poem from Ukrainian poet Lessia Oukraïnka, solemnly declaring: “I no longer have either happiness or freedom, only one hope remains to me: to return one day to my beautiful Ukraine.” One year ago, Cannes got off to an emotional start with remarks from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Christopher Vourlias A Moscow court has ordered the arrest of Oscar-nominated film producer Alexander Rodnyansky and theater director Ivan Vyrypaev, accusing the two of “spreading false information” about Russia’s war in Ukraine. According to the Associated Press, both men — who each reside outside Russia — will be placed in custody once they are either detained by Russian authorities or extradited from abroad. A source close to Rodnyansky said the producer is currently in Cannes, but he could not immediately be reached for comment. Rodnyansky currently splits his time between Ukraine, Europe and L.A., where his production shingle AR Content is based. The Kyiv-born producer, who spent nearly three decades living and working in Russia, fled the country just days after its invasion of Ukraine, after receiving a tip that his outspoken criticism of the war had landed him in the Kremlin’s crosshairs.

A Russian court has issued a warrant for the arrest of prominent international film producer Alexander Rodnyansky as well as theater director Ivan Vyrypaev for “spreading false information about the war” in Ukraine.

EXCLUSIVE: When millions of Ukrainians fled to the Polish border after the Russian invasion last year, Maciek Hamela, whose film In the Rearview is debuting in the Cannes market this week, was one of a number of volunteers who drove to help assist multiple generations of Ukrainian civilians in fleeing the life-threatening conflict. 

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s your first look at Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) and Vincent Cassel (La Haine) in action-thriller Damaged, which wrapped this spring in Scotland.

Last year’s Ukrainian Eurovision winners have invited the Princess of Wales to tour with them after she played the piano in a surprise appearance during the opening performance of this year’s contest. Kate Middleton played a pre-recorded instrumental piece, created by Joe Price and Kojo Samuel, during the performance by Kalush Orchestra.The hip-hop folk band congratulated the princess on her “impressive” piano skills and thanked her for joining them, saying it highlighted the “depth of support” the UK had for the war-torn country.The band said in a statement: “We want to thank HRH Princess of Wales for joining us for our performance.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor CNN on Wednesday broadcast one of the most controversial news events of the year, a runaway town hall interview with former President Donald Trump, and advertisers like Subaru and Fidelity Investments went along for the ride. There are new questions about whether all of Madison Avenue will do so in the future. The nation’s big TV-news outlets are about to enter what should be a healthy cycle. The closer the U.S. gets to a presidential election, the more audiences tend to watch. CNN, for example, has indicated it expects to telecast more primetime town halls with candidates (last week’s lured nearly 3.31 million viewers), while Fox News Channel is expected to broadcast the Republican Party’s first primary debate in August.

TVORCHI took to the stage at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.The electronic music duo – comprised of producer Andrii Hutsuliak and vocalist Jimoh Kehinde – performed their song ‘Heart Of Steel’ at this year’s contest, placing sixth in the final tally with 243 votes. Just 10 minutes before their performance went down, reports of Ternopil being bombed started to emerge.

The hometown of the Ukrainian act Tvorchi representing their country at Eurovision was bombed by Russia moments before they took the stage.

Kalush Orchestra, performing their winning entry of “Stefania” in Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti station, interspersed with cutaways to UK-based talents ranging from Andrew Lloyd Webber to Ms. Banks. For her part, performed a short instrumental piece for her cameo, filmed at in the Crimson Drawing Room of Windsor Castle.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinephil has come aboard to represent worldwide sales rights to Polish director Maciek Hamela’s In The Rearview, which will make its debut in the Cannes Film Festival next week as part of the ACID (Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema) program.