Venice Biennale Issues Statement in Support of Ukraine, But Fest Will Not Ban Russian Filmmakers

If there’s one thing ‘Dancing With The Stars’ pro Maks Chmerkovskiy wants people to know about the conflict in Ukraine right now, its that nothing is slowing down. Providing an update to fans from Warsaw, Poland via his Instagram, Maks urged people to keep supporting and donating to his native Ukraine, instead of getting bogged down by an activism hangover. “A lot of people still need our help, and we should continue providing the support,” he shared. “We now showed Ukraine as a world that we can all do it together, and we have to continue probably doing that.”

Pablo Schreiber hits the red carpet next to a lot of his co-stars for the premiere of HALO during the 2022 SXSW Festival held at The Paramount Theatre on Monday (March 14) in Austin, Texas.

Editors note: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had tragic consequences for the Ukrainian people, and the wider ramifications of the conflict are only beginning to be understood. As the West imposes economic sanctions on Russia, the country is facing a period of isolation unseen since the Cold War. Deadline invited one high-profile Russian producer to pen a column discussing their perspective on the situation. At their request they are being kept anonymous for fear of reprisal from Putin’s government as it cracks down on free speech.

DJ Mag reports, the team from the establishment “aim to provide support to the musical and cultural community that has been facing life-threatening challenges since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine”.The ∄ Community Fund will help support cultural people in need in Kyiv and Ukraine, organise transport within Ukraine and abroad, organise shelters, facilitate jobs in the EU, organise housing, help people seek psychological and financial support, and assist with structuring vitally important information.“During the last two years, we, the ∄ team, have been working on building up a safer space, which has become a place of refuge for thousands of people from all around the world, a place of culture, music and art with the values of love, respect and mutual support at its very core,” a post on the fund’s website read.“In this moment of unprecedented crisis we are doing everything in our power to help members of our community, artists and more than 150 employees of ∄, whose livelihood is in jeopardy: support them financially, help them find a safe place in Ukraine or abroad, help them cross the border, enable them to receive humanitarian, legal and psychological aid.”The post goes on to explain that members of the ∄ team are currently “all over Europe”, with some remaining in Kyiv, others residing in different cities in Ukraine and some having escaped abroad.A post shared by ∄ (official) (@dance.delivery)“Regardless of the distance between us, we all keep on working: some of our employees have joined the Territorial Defense Forces, some are volunteering in cities and some are helping from afar,” they added.Additionally, the club has set up a Telegram bot that allows members of its community to make contact to

The Braxton family is speaking out after Traci Braxton‘s death.

Naman Ramachandran 606 Distribution and the BFI have partnered to organize a series of preview charity screenings of Elie Grappe’s Cannes winning film “Olga.” From each ticket sold, a donation will be made to support Ukraine via the Disasters Emergency Committee. The film, about a young female Ukrainian gymnast forced to train in exile, had its U.K. premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival earlier this week.

There has been some controversy surrounding the comments that Prince William made this week while visiting the Ukrainian Cultural Centre in London.

Christian Siriano is auctioning off a custom blue-and-yellow gown to support the people of Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion. The American fashion designer offered his support in an Instagram post on Thursday, where he shared an image of the tulle, criss-cross gown whose colours represent the Ukrainian flag.

Prince William is being quoted as having said two very different things with regard to the war in Ukraine right now, and it has caused a massive controversy.

Russian performers have begun canceling concerts in their home country and joining a larger "no to war" campaign condemning the Russia's invasion of Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine on Feb. 24 after recognizing the independence of two separatist regions in the country.

J. Kim Murphy William Morris Endeavor (WME) has elected to nix its annual Academy Awards party, instead choosing to donate one million dollars to UNICEF to support civilians in Ukraine amid the ongoing invasion of the country by Russian military forces.The agency’s chairman Lloyd Braun informed WME staff of the decision through a letter circulated through the company on Tuesday.“I’ve been following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in shock, processing heartbreaking stories and images while wondering how we can best lend our support,” Braun’s statement reads.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentAlmost two weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s film industry continues to parse the complexities of a boycott on Russian cinema in order to express solidarity with the Ukrainian film community.While some film festivals, such as Stockholm and Glasgow, haven’t hesitated in boycotting Russian state-funded films outright, others like Cannes and Venice are taking a more nuanced approach, banning official delegations, but not necessarily Russian films and directors.The war’s more immediate effect, however, is that Ukrainian cinema is set to gain an increased visibility in the festival arena and beyond.On Monday evening, Rome’s Cinema Troisi hosted a free screening in collaboration with the Venice Film Festival of Ukrainian director Valentyn Vasynovych’s “Reflection” (pictured), set during the war in Donbass, in eastern Ukraine, in 2014. The film, which premiered in competition on the Lido last September, “asks, with brutal austerity, what happens to the soul of a man — and a nation — at war,” as critic Jessica Kiang put it in her Variety review.The Rome event, introduced by Venice Biennale president Roberto Cicutto, is being followed by other screenings of “Reflection,” organized by the fest in Italy.

The three key side events of the Cannes Film Festival – Critics’ Week, ACID and the Directors’ Fortnight – will not be joining the boycott of Russian cinema.

Christopher Vourlias Denis Ivanov, the Ukrainian producer of critically acclaimed films including Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy’s “The Tribe,” Sergey Loznitsa’s “Donbass” and Oleh Sentsov’s “Rhino,” has penned an impassioned letter against Russia’s war in Ukraine, describing it as a “genocide against Ukrainians” and accusing the Russian military of war crimes.In the letter, Ivanov gave his full-throated support to a boycott on Russian films, demanding “no more ‘business as usual’ with Putin’s Russia.”“I think some festival selectors, film professionals and cultural managers just do not get what is happening in Ukraine,” he wrote, in light of an ongoing campaign by the Russian military that has escalated in recent days. “This war of aggression by the Russians has turned into a war on independence and a war for values and rights.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lead Congress in showing solidarity for Ukraine by wearing a blue blazer, as well as a pin with both the United States and Ukraine’s flags on it. Pelosi was one of many politicians showed their support for Ukrainians during the State of the Union address on Tuesday March 1. Many sported outfits that prominently featured the colors yellow and blue from the country’s flag.