Ukrainian Filmmakers Take To Front Lines To Fight Vladimir Putin’s Invasion

deadline.com:

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.I am crammed into a small, Soviet-style bunker in the nucleus of Kyiv city, air raid sirens and Church Bells blaring in the world above.

Across from me in the cold confinement are two unfamiliar faces, who I quickly learned were budding filmmakers with a handheld camera were documenting everyday moments of Russia’s searing invasion of its much smaller neighbor, Ukraine.“I guess this will be our graduation film,” Kyral Kurinsky, 38, tells me calmly. “If we ever graduate.”Kyral and his Finnish classmate Lukas were just weeks away from completing their director’s course at the prestigious Ukrainian Film School when war ripped through their dreams in late February.And while social media feeds have been flushed with wincing images of trauma-stricken faces fleeing Ukraine’s borders, many physically cannot leave – no matter what the war brings in the coming days.

Of course, Kyral must stay as per marital law prohibiting Ukrainian men aged 18 and 60 from exiting the country. Nevertheless, his wife Jen – paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair – has no choice but to endure whatever blitz and bombing campaign the Russians may ignite in the days, weeks, or months to come.But it’s a fate the 32-year-old IT and video software specialist, who works on special projects for prominent video/audio technology company Avid.com, takes all in her stride.The young couple was driving through western Ukraine’s mountainous terrain to go to her