Ukrainian Film Producer Who Fled Kyiv Today Fears She’ll Never Return Home: ‘Nobody Knows What’s Next’

thewrap.com:

statement Thursday. Bassel said she was hopeful some version of the festival could proceed, even in a virtual format, until the invasion.

But much of the programming team remains in Kyiv, and all day on Thursday, Bassel and her team received hundreds of emails from international film festivals around the world offering to screen Ukrainian documentary films to raise awareness about truth the attack on the country.

Bassel feels the situation now is “much, much worse” than the Ukrainian revolution in 2013 and 2014, and the impact of the invasion on the country’s film community and industry is the furthest thing from her mind. “Of course, the festival cannot be the priority at the time, but I don’t know, maybe the next day will bring us some hope.

We’ll see,” she said. “Everything is upside down, and each new day, your world changes rapidly and drastically, and you’re just not able to plan anything.” Ultimately, Bassel had strong words for Vladimir Putin’s Russian government and urged the rest of the world to denounce the Russian aggression. “I really do hope that people understand that this is a big, huge war, it is like the Third World War.