Film producers are often used to facing challenging situations but for Denis Ivanov, he never could have anticipated the dramatic diversion his job would take when, on February 24th, Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of his home country.The Ukrainian producer-distributor, who has long been a regular fixture on the international festival circuit with credits including Oleg Sentsov’s Rhino and Sergei Loznitsa’s Donbass, now volunteers—like many other creatives in the country—for the local territorial army.
Ivanov is driving or delivering ammunition, raising money internationally, helping transport drones, whatever may be needed on any particular day to facilitate the locals in fight against the continued onslaught of Vladimir Putin’s army on the country.Speaking via Zoom from his office in the country’s capital of Kyiv where, at the time of the interview, Russian troops had fully withdrawn to focus on their offensive in eastern Ukraine, Ivanov appears calm and focused.
He may not be fighting on the frontlines, but his battle is nonetheless important: he’s fighting to preserve Ukrainian culture.“The war is not only about the military,” he says. “The first thing Russians are doing when they come into a town or village is they go into the library and take out all the Ukrainian books about our history.
It’s not that they are just fighting for the land, they are fighting against our language and our culture. The world has often thought of Ukraine as part of the Russian-speaking world, but for us, we know we are not just that.
Read more on deadline.com
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