Ukrainian Filmmakers Give Their Accounts From The War & Urge The World To Boycott Russian Culture

Lise Pedersen While her first feature-length doc “Outside” is having its world premiere in the main competition at the Copenhagen Intl. Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX), Ukrainian director Olha Zhurba will be back home.

EXCLUSIVE:  Producers Kenn Viselman (Teletubbies) and Brooklyn Weaver (Extant) have acquired all the rights for the western hemisphere of animated series Moonzy & Moona. This includes all mediums of the pre-existing IP which spans the rights to develop original films, series, books and merchandising.

A small band of Moscow’s elite is plotting to topple Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian intelligence officials claim.

Boris Johnson was accused of being a “threat to national security” following reports he was at a Tory party fundraising event on the night Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine.

Fresh drone footage has revealed the moment Russia launched a hypersonic missile strike on Ukraine yesterday.

Vladimir Putin appeared to disappear mid-sentence while delivering a speech at a pro-war rally.

While the Russian war against Ukraine has continued, one of the bravest shows of support for Ukraine came from Marina Ovsyannikova, a Russian journalist, who interrupted a newscast to hold up a sign protesting the war on Monday March 14. She could be heard shouting in Russian in the background of the Channel One broadcast. Marina, who is an editor for the channel, quickly garnered worldwide support for speaking out against the Russian government, with many praising her for putting herself at risk to speak out against the attacks. Find out everything you need to know about Marina here.

Editor’s note: In Hollie McKay’s newest special report for Deadline, the seasoned foreign affairs correspondent and Only Cry for the Living: Memos from Inside the ISIS Battlefield author is still in Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin’s invasion is turning increasingly brutal & resistance is intensifying.

Ukraine's cultural heritage, as international cultural institutions stepped up their condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.The Hermitage Amsterdam said it has long distanced itself from politics in Russia under President Vladimir Putin as it built close ties with the Hermitage, giving the Amsterdam museum “access to one of the world’s most famous art collections, which we could draw from” for exhibitions.“Russia’s recent attack on Ukraine makes keeping this distance no longer tenable,” the Dutch museum said in a statement. “Our Board and directors have decided to cut ties with the State Hermitage Museum.”It added that it hoped to eventually be able to restore ties pending peace and “changes in the future of Russia.”In another move to culturally isolate Moscow, the Swedish Academy that hands out the coveted Nobel Prize in Literature broke a long-standing practice not to make political statements and condemned the invasion.In a statement, the academy noted that its history and mission are deeply rooted in the traditions of freedom of expression, belief and inquiry.“We therefore join the legion of our fellow academies, literary and cultural institutions, places of higher learning, defenders of a free press, human rights organizations and nation states in expressing our abhorrence of the Russian government’s unjustified attack on Ukraine and its people,” it said.The United Nations’ cultural agency, meanwhile, sounded the alarm about the damage to Ukraine’s cultural patrimony in announcing it was working to assess Ukraine’s educational and cultural institutions and its U.N.-designated heritage sites.Ukraine is home to seven UNESCO World Heritage sites, including the famous St.

Deadline). “Life has changed in an instant with the fall of the first bomb on the territory of Ukraine. Everything we knew about Hitler’s invasion has now become real again.”Sentsov’s latest film “Rhino” was just released in Ukraine two weeks ago, his first movie after he had been imprisoned for five years in Russia in 2014 for fighting against Vladimir Putin’s regime and the annexation of Crimea.

Russian-born model Irina Shayk shared her support for Ukraine on Monday via Instagram. Shayk, 36, shared a photo of a black and white peace sign on her personal Instagram account as Russia continues to invade Ukraine. "No To War," she wrote, adding prayer and broken heart emojis.

Ukraine intensified Tuesday as the Cannes Film Festival said no Russian delegations would be welcome this year and the Venice festival announced free screenings of a film about the 2014 conflict in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.The announcements by Europe's two premier film festivals came on the heels of other high-profile protests in the arts, including Hollywood's decision to pull films scheduled for release in Russia and the Munich Philharmonic's decision to fire chief conductor Valery Gergiev. The orchestra, joined by other orchestras and festivals linked to Gergiev, cited his support for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his refusal to reject the invasion.Cannes, which is scheduled for May, is the most global of film festivals and its international village of flag-waving pavilions annually hosts more than 80 countries from around the world.In a statement, festival organizers said the ban on any official Russian delegation or individuals linked to the Kremlin would remain “unless the war of assault ends in conditions that will satisfy the Ukrainian people.”The festival didn’t rule out accepting films from Russia.

Ukraine has drawn swift and wide-ranging condemnation from the international community, which has imposed unprecedented sanctions against President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle and pushed the Russian economy to a breaking point, with the ruble plummeting to historic lows on Monday.Amid calls for a boycott of Russian films that have received government support and a strident response from European media groups, cultural institutions, film festivals and industry confabs, the backlash has rattled Russian filmmakers with long-standing personal and professional ties to the continent’s screen industry.“The need for Europe to make a clear anti-war statement is understandable and necessary. However, banning all Russians from the major cultural events is not only unhelpful — it’s harmful,” said one veteran producer.