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How Ukrainian artists channeled their creativity into documenting war

How Ukrainian artists channeled their creativity into documenting war

Yahoo06-02-2025

Art mobilizes against bullets, bombs and tanks in 'Porcelain War,' a documentary about how beauty not only persists amid the wreckage of warfare but serves as a necessary existential weapon of its own. The film, which won the U.S. grand jury prize for documentary at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, is competing for an Academy Award — drawing never-more-urgent focus to the Ukrainian fight against invading Russian forces.
It's the third year in a row that a documentary about Ukraine has been nominated, with '20 Days in Mariupol' winning the Oscar last year. But as the title suggests, this one hits differently. Its subjects are a couple — ceramicist Slava Leontyev and Anya Stasenko, who evocatively paints his palm-size creatures — and another painter, their friend Andrey Stefanov. When Russian attacks escalated in February 2022, their lives were turned upside down: Leontyev and Stasenko fled their Crimean home for Kharkiv, near the Russian border in northeast Ukraine, while Stefanov apprehensively sent his wife and two daughters out of the country for their safety.
The men took different roles as Ukrainian civilians donned camouflage to join the fight: Leontyev became a weapons instructor and Stefanov swapped his paintbrushes for a camera. Both began documenting their lives, in and out of strife, as co-director and cinematographer, respectively, of this film. The project, however, had peacetime roots: Polish-born producer Aniela Sidorska and American co-director Brendan Bellomo had originally hoped to collaborate on an animation project around Stasenko and Leontyev's folkloric miniatures. The war changed that.
'Slava really felt that while there were so many Western journalists that were telling an important perspective, it was from the outside,' Bellomo says, 'and he really had this personal story to tell, to really try to complete that picture. And so we wanted to empower them to share this.'
With the help of a volunteer network, the production was able to set up various members of Leontyev's unit with GoPro body cams, camera drones and compact cinema cameras with which they shot more than 500 hours of footage. 'They would go down into a bunker during their missions and, on Starlink video, we would have a small class,' says Bellomo, who taught them essential filmmaking grammar. 'They're contractors, they're IT professionals, doctors. They're furniture salespeople. They're not professional soldiers. They don't want to fight a minute longer than they have to, but they've taught themselves to prepare for this war, and they felt they could teach themselves how to turn on a camera amidst battle.'
Due to that process, 'Porcelain War' features unique angles on 21st century combat, as camera drones observe armed drones while they hover above a bomb target. Meanwhile, the synchronized body cameras capture multiple perspectives of soldiers working together on the ground. 'There's an incredibly deep, almost irony to the way that they're looking at their situation,' says Bellomo, who recently joined Leontyev for a video conversation.
Read more: Review: Defending one's homeland and the right to make art become common cause in 'Porcelain War'
The endeavor also proved an emotional boost for the soldiers in the unit, which they call 'Saigon' in honor of 'Apocalypse Now,' a collective favorite. 'It's really important for them to make something normal during the war,' Leontyev says. At one point, his commander eased the artist's doubts about shooting video instead of bullets. 'She answered me, 'Now you have a more powerful and more impactful weapon: your camera.' Personally, I never thought about the camera like a weapon. For me, it was a new brush for paint. But it's really the same, because the totalitarian government is trying to take away our free choice, how to think and how to create."
The narrative is paced by startling juxtapositions between the carnage of destroyed villages and the peaceful natural beauty of the nearby countryside.
Perhaps the boldest contrast, though, is how a walk through the woods can lead both to a trove of porcini mushrooms (dutifully collected for the soldiers) and a land mine (which Leontyev defuses with an unhurried hand). 'You need to keep calm,' he says. 'It's a way to survive.'
It's the kind of spirit that made such a complicated and risky production possible. 'There's this Ukrainian attitude of, 'We're going to figure it out,'' Bellomo says. 'We're going to figure it out together.'
Happily, aspects of the planned animation project carried through, with mesmerizing sequences created by the Polish studio BluBlu, accompanied by the keening melodies of Ukrainian ethnic fusion quartet DakhaBrakha, which donated its catalog for the production to use as it pleased.
'It's natural for us as artists to try to look around, to try to find something interesting and something beautiful,' Leontyev says. 'Animation gave us the opportunity to tell about the terrors of war without showing them like the news does, because news gets old. And we filmed every flower or every river or every person as if it was the last day they exist.'
Get the Envelope newsletter, sent three times a week during awards season, for exclusive reporting, insights and commentary.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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Partner of the First U.S. Woman in Space Reflects On Their Hidden Relationship
Partner of the First U.S. Woman in Space Reflects On Their Hidden Relationship

Time​ Magazine

time39 minutes ago

  • Time​ Magazine

Partner of the First U.S. Woman in Space Reflects On Their Hidden Relationship

History does not record if Sally Ride rolled her eyes when she got a look at the plans for the first toiletry kit NASA put together for its female astronauts—but she'd have been within her rights to do so. The space agency certainly knew how to pack for men, providing them more or less the basics—deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush, razor. The women would get the essentials too, but there would be more: lipstick, blush, eyeliner, and, critically, up to 100 tampons—because who-all knew just how many the average woman would need during the average week in space? That first toiletry kit was planned before June 18, 1983, when Ride went aloft on the shuttle Challenger, becoming the first American woman in space, breaking the gender barrier the Soviets had broken with cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, just over 20 years to the day earlier. The tampon nonsense was not the only indignity NASA's female astronauts in general and Ride in particular had to endure. Her story is chronicled in the evocative new documentary Sally, a 2025 winner of the Sundance Film Festival 's Alfred P. Sloan feature film prize. Among the memorable moments Ride experienced was the pre-flight press conference during which a TIME magazine correspondent raised his hand and asked, 'Dr. Ride, a couple of fast questions, sir…ma'am.' There was, too, the reporter who pointedly asked Ride 'Do you weep?' when confronted with a particularly knotty problem during training. There was the bouquet of flowers Ride was handed after the shuttle landed, intended as a gift to America's first space heroine—a gift Ride politely refused to accept, sparking all manner of criticism in the mainstream press. More important than all of that, though, was the private— exceedingly private—side to Ride, most notably her 27-year relationship with her life partner Tam O'Shaughnessy, a marriage-in-all-but-name that wasn't revealed until Ride died of pancreatic cancer in 2012 at age 61, and O'Shaughnessy told the world in the obituary she wrote to mark her mate's passing. Not long before Ride died, O'Shaughnessey gently broached how—and whether—she should reveal their more-than quarter century secret. 'I asked Sally about that. I said, you know, 'I'm kind of worried. I don't know what I'm going to write, you know, how I'm going to navigate this,'' O'Shaughnessy recalled in a recent conversation with TIME, ahead of the release of the film. 'And she said, 'You decide. Whatever you decide will be the right thing to do.'' The film, written, produced, and directed by Cristina Constantine, premiers on the National Geographic channel on June 16, and becomes available for streaming on Disney+ and Hulu on June 17. As it reveals, Sally and Tam made a lot of right—and tough—choices in the time they had together, and Ride did much the same when it came to the professional trajectory that took her to space. There is no minimizing just how alien the notion of female astronauts was at the start, at least in the U.S. The film includes a clip of Gordon Cooper, one of NASA's original seven astronauts, being interviewed in the early 1960s. 'Is there any room in the space program for a woman?' the reporter asked. 'Well,' Cooper answered without a trace of a smile, 'we could have used a woman and flown her instead of the chimpanzee.' It wasn't until 1976, a decade and a half after Alan Shepard became the first American in space, that NASA opened up its astronaut selection process to women and people of color. More than 8,000 hopefuls applied; in 1978, NASA selected 35 of them to become astronauts, including three Black people, one Asian American, and six women. Ride was among them, as was Judith Resnik, who would lose her life when the shuttle Challenger exploded at the start of its tenth mission in January 1986. There was a great deal of handicapping inside and outside of NASA as to which woman would fly first—much the way there was among the men in the run-up to Shepard's flight in 1961—and Ride and Resnik were considered the leading candidates. Ultimately, as Sally recounts, Ride was chosen because she struck NASA mission planners as slightly less distracted by the celebrity attending being number one, focusing more on the mission and less on the history she would make. 'She loved physics and she loved space exploration,' says O'Shaughnessey, 'and with those things she could be intense, driven.' Ride loved O'Shaughnessey too—though it was a devotion that was a long time in the making. The two met when Ride was 13 and O'Shaughnessey was 12 and they were standing in line to check in to play in a tennis tournament in Southern California, where they both grew up. Ride repeatedly rose restlessly to her tiptoes, and O'Shaughenessy said, ''You're walking on your toes like a ballet dancer,'' she recalls in the film. 'That kind of started our friendship. Sally was kind of quiet, but she would talk for eight minutes straight on different players and how to beat 'em, how to whup 'em.' The two grew quickly close, but went in different directions, with Ride studying physics at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania for three semesters beginning in 1968 and later at UCLA for the summer semester before transferring to Stanford as a junior, and O'Shaughnessey becoming a professional tennis player from 1971 to 1974, ultimately playing in both the U.S. Open and Wimbledon. O'Shaughnessy accepted her sexuality early, openly, and enthusiastically. 'I was on the tennis circuit and there were a few queer women,' she told TIME. 'But it was also just the atmosphere, even the straight women. No one really cared who you slept with…I was going to the gay bars in San Francisco and dancing with my friends.' For Ride, things were different. When she was at Stanford she fell in love with her female roommate and the two were together for four years. But Ride insisted on keeping the relationship largely under wraps and that secrecy was a no-go for her partner. 'She couldn't stand being so closeted and decided to move on with her life,' says O'Shaughnessy. Ride would later choose an opposite sex partner, marrying fellow astronaut Steve Hawley in 1982, a move that was more than just an accommodating pose for a public figure in a country not ready for same-sex marriage, but less than a true union of the heart. 'They were really good friends,' O'Shaughnessy says. 'They had a lot in common. He was an astronomer, Sally was a physicist. They had stuff to talk about. They were both so thrilled to be selected to be astronauts and they both liked sports, so I think they had a solid friendship.' It wasn't enough. The two divorced in 1987, but even before they did, Ride and O'Shaughnessy began drifting together as more than just friends. At the time, O'Shaughnessy was living in Atlanta, after retiring from the tennis circuit; Ride, who was living in Houston, would visit her frequently. 'I never thought we would become romantic,' O'Shaughnessy says, 'but it just turned that way one afternoon in the spring of 1985. When she would come to town, we would typically go for runs and long walks and just spend time together. Back at my place one day, we were just talking. I had an old cocker spaniel named Annie, I leaned over to pet her, and the next thing I knew, Sally's hand was on my lower back. And it felt unusual. I turned to look at her and I could tell she was in love with me.' As O'Shaughnessy recalls in the film, she said, 'Oh boy, we're in trouble.' Ride responded, 'We don't have to be. We don't have to do this.' Then they kissed. Ride would ultimately fly twice in space, going aloft the second time in 1984, once again aboard the shuttle Challenger. After that snake-bit ship came to tragic ruin, exploding 73 seconds into its last flight and claiming the lives of all seven crewmembers, Ride and Neil Armstrong, the commander of Apollo 11 and the first man on the moon, served on the commission that investigated the causes of the accident. Ride left NASA in 1987, accepting a fellowship at Stanford and later became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. In 1989, O'Shaughnessy moved out west to live with her. It would not be until 2013, a year after Ride's death, that California would permanently legalize gay marriage, and it would not be until 2015 that the Supreme Court would do the same nationwide. That was alright with Ride, who, as with her relationship with her college roommate, continued to believe that her love for O'Shaughnessy should remain a quiet and relatively private thing. But all that began to change in 2011. It was early that year that Ride first showed signs of illness—poor appetite and yellowing cheeks. Her doctor diagnosed pancreatic cancer. 'The doctor never said what stage. He never said the worst stage. We thought she was going to get better, and we were trying everything,' O'Shaughnessy recalls. 'She was doing acupuncture, we were meditating, we became vegans. And then one day, we're at the oncologist, and he said, 'It's time for hospice.' And Sally and I were, like, shocked.' Not long before Ride died, the couple grew concerned that O'Shaughnessy would not be allowed to visit her in the hospital, help make critical care decisions, or share property because they were not married—and could not be in California. So they went for the next best thing, registering as certified domestic partners, which afforded them the necessary rights. 'It's the worst phrase,' says O'Shaughnessy. 'We used to call each other certified domestic hens, because it's such a bad term.' Whatever name they went by, they would not get to enjoy their newly legalized status for long. Ride passed on July 23, 2012, just 17 months after she was diagnosed. At first NASA planned no formal memorial or celebration of Ride's life. Then, the next month, Armstrong died and a memorial was held at the Washington National Cathedral, with 1,500 people in attendance. 'I got mad,' O'Shaughnessy says. She called then-Senator Barbara Mikulski (D, Md.) who chaired the Senate Committee on Appropriations and oversaw NASA's budget. Mikulski called then-NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, who at first offered up a relatively intimate affair for 300 people at the National Air and Space Museum. O'Shaughnessy pressed, and ultimately won approval for a far more prepossessing event at the Kennedy Center in 2013. Today, Ride's legacy lives on in Sally Ride Science, a nonprofit founded by Ride and O'Shaughnessy in 2001 to inspire girls to become scientifically literate and to draw girls and women into the STEM fields. It lives on too in astronaut Peggy Whitson, who now holds the U.S. record for most time spent in space, at 675 days over four missions. It lives on in Christina Koch, who will become the first woman to travel to the moon, when she flies aboard Artemis II on its circumlunar journey in 2026. It lives on in NASA's current 46-person astronaut corps, of whom 19 are women. Ride flew high, Ride flew fast, and Ride flew first—doing service to both science and human equity in the process. Sally powerfully tells her tale.

5 new to Max movies to stream in June with 90% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes
5 new to Max movies to stream in June with 90% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes

Tom's Guide

time7 hours ago

  • Tom's Guide

5 new to Max movies to stream in June with 90% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes

Summer is heating up, and so are the best streaming services with plenty of great new movies to beat the heat. Max is no exception, but with so much on offer, it can be tough narrowing down which movies are worth adding to your watchlist. That's why we've combed through all the new movies to Max in June 2025 to highlight the best of the best. Only movies with a 90% or higher critics' score on the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes make the cut. Granted, not every movie with a high rating is guaranteed to be a hit, but it is a useful metric to see which films are beloved by critics and audiences alike. This month's batch includes everything from iconic sci-fi movies to MGM classic musicals and award-winning documentaries. So let's dive into five new to Max movies with a 90% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes that you need to watch right now. Bong Joon-ho made cinematic history with "Parasite," the first Korean film to win an Academy Award and the first non-English language film ever to take home the coveted Best Picture crown. If you missed the buzz the first time around, I can't recommend "Parasite" enough. It follows the struggling Kim family, who get a rare stroke of luck when son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) lands a job tutoring the daughter of the wealthy, unsuspecting Park family. With a forged diploma crafted by his sister Ki-jung (Park So-dam), he secures the gig and paves the way for the rest of the Kim family to infiltrate the household under false identities. Ki-jung poses as an art therapist for the Parks' young son, while their father Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) and mother Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin) replace the family's driver and housekeeper through a series of calculated deceptions. Everything goes according to plan until one mistake unravels their carefully constructed façade, setting off a chain of events that spiral into chaos. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Rotten Tomatoes score: 99%Watch it now on Max The 1978 version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is a perfect example of why some remakes are worth the wait. Donald Sutherland stars as Matthew Bennell, a health inspector in San Francisco who realizes too late that something sinister is happening. When his colleague Elizabeth (Brooke Adams) notices that her husband hasn't been acting like himself lately, together they start to uncover a terrifying truth: that a parasitic alien race has quietly begun taking over Earth. Unlike most remakes, this one was both a critical and commercial success. The 1978 "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" stands out for its eerie atmosphere and thoughtful approach, blending science fiction with sharp social commentary and a growing sense of paranoia that still hits just as hard today. Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%Watch it now on Max This 2016 documentary "I Am Not Your Negro" draws from the powerful, unfinished manuscript "Remember This House" by acclaimed American writer James Baldwin. Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, the film delivers an unflinching examination of racism in the United States, weaving Baldwin's words with historical footage and contemporary context that questions Black representation in Hollywood and beyond. Critically acclaimed, the documentary earned an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature and won a BAFTA in the same category. While it may not be the easiest or most entertaining watch on this list, it stands out as perhaps the most essential. Baldwin's words, brought to life through director Raoul Peck, come together in a powerful watch that confronts and questions the very core of what America claims to represent. Rotten Tomatoes score: 99%Watch it now on Max I'm a sucker for a musical, and "Meet Me In St. Louis" is an old favorite, featuring the legendary Judy Garland in one of her most memorable roles. She stars as Esther Smith, one of four daughters in the close-knit Smith family, who has her eye on the boy next door (Tom Drake). Rather than following a single plotline, the film unfolds through a series of seasonal vignettes, capturing moments in the lives of the Smith family as they navigate life, love and progress at the turn of the century. "Meet Me in St. Louis" is best remembered for Garland's unforgettable vocal performances. The film also introduced several timeless earworms like 'The Trolley Song,' 'The Boy Next Door,' and the beloved holiday classic 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.' All three songs, written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, remain iconic to this day. Rotten Tomatoes score: 99%Watch it now on Max All four of the original "Hunger Games" movies landed on Max this month, and whether you're a long-time fan or curious newcomer, I highly recommend diving into the series. Only one managed to crack a 90% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, though: the standout second film, "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire." It's a direct continuation of the first movie, so it's not an ideal place to jump in. If you haven't seen "The Hunger Games" yet, consider watching that first before adding this to your watchlist. "Catching Fire" picks up with Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) returning to District 12 after surviving the 74th Hunger Games. But their victory hasn't freed them from the Capitol's grasp. As they embark on the high-stakes Victory Tour, it becomes clear that rebellion is brewing across Panem. In response, President Snow (Donald Sutherland) devises a chilling plan to extinguish the growing unrest once and for all. Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%Watch it now on Max

'Incredibles 3' Officially Taps Elemental Filmmaker Peter Sohn as Director
'Incredibles 3' Officially Taps Elemental Filmmaker Peter Sohn as Director

Hypebeast

time7 hours ago

  • Hypebeast

'Incredibles 3' Officially Taps Elemental Filmmaker Peter Sohn as Director

Summary The third installment of theThe Incrediblesfranchise is well on its way. Pixar's highly anticipatedIncredibles 3is officially moving forward with a new director at the helm — Peter Sohn, known for his work onElementalandThe Good Dinosaur. The first film released in 2004 and the second in 2018. While franchise creator Brad Bird, who wrote and directed the first twoIncrediblesfilms, will return to write the screenplay and serve as a producer, he will not be directing the third installment. This decision was reportedly made by Bird himself and Pixar Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter, citing Bird's commitment to other projects, including his long-gestating filmRay Gunnat Skydance Animation. Sohn, a protégé of Bird, has a long history with Pixar, having worked as an animator on the originalIncrediblesand as a story consultant onIncredibles 2. His recent success withElemental, which garnered an Academy Award nomination and performed strongly at the box office, has solidified his standing. His experience exploring familial dynamics and building intricate worlds in his previous films bodes well for the Parr family's next adventure. No release date has been announced by Pixar just yet. The studio is gearing up for the release ofEliolater this month.

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