Latest news with #Stasenko
The Guardian
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘The camera is more impactful than a rifle': the married Ukrainian artists who filmed the war – and are now up for an Oscar
The exhausted couple speaking over video from Los Angeles do not look like typical Oscar nominees. The tiredness etched on their faces is not from late nights partying or long days networking. It looks more like the weight of the world on their shoulders. Anya Stasenko and Slava Leontyev are ceramics artists from the frontline Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. They have been married for decades and work together, making beautifully intricate painted porcelain beasts no bigger than your fist. When Russian troops invaded in 2022, rather than fleeing, the couple stayed in Kharkiv. Leontyev was a weapons instructor in the Ukrainian special forces, a weapons instructor who trained civilian volunteers. Then he picked up a camera and shot a documentary, Porcelain War. When the film premiered at Sundance in January 2024, the couple flew to the US, expecting to stay for a month. Then, to everyone's surprise, Porcelain War won the festival's top documentary prize. The couple have spent the past year in the US raising awareness for Ukraine. 'We never planned to be here such a long time and we really need to get back as soon possible,' says Leontyev. They are based in Denver, but spend most of their time travelling with the film. Do they ever feel a sense of guilt about being away from Ukraine so long? Leontyev shakes his head. 'I never felt guilty, but I really miss people.' He talks about his unease when he started making the documentary while still serving. 'When I picked up my camera, someone had to pick up a rifle in my place, literally. I cannot explain. I felt … not guilty, but something was wrong.' One day, Leontyev asked his unit commander for her honest opinion. 'She said to me: 'Your camera is a powerful weapon. More impactful than a rifle.' It was only possible to make this movie because my unit completely supported us.' So far, the unit has had no fatalities. 'It is a miracle,' he says. We are talking without an interpreter. Last January, Stasenko and Leontyev arrived in the US unable to speak English. In a year, they have gone from zero to conversational. Leontyev is apologetic. 'Our English is not so perfect,' he grins. 'The grammar is absent!' At this point, a little scrap of fur pokes its head up from his wife's lap. It's Frodo, the couple's terrier, another star of the film. Frodo is barking at an aeroplane. 'He thinks every aeroplane is a military aeroplane. He chases them away,' says Leontyev, looking at his wife. They smile at each other. Stasenko and Leontyev have known each other since childhood. There is a photograph in Porcelain War of Stasenko pushing her future husband down the street in an old-fashioned pram (she is a few years older than him). They got together at art school in the 1980s in what was still Soviet Ukraine. In 1991, they were students when the Soviet Union collapsed. 'It was interesting – and a hungry time,' says Leontyev. 'It's normal for students to hungry!' his wife points out. She wonders whether living through that moment prepared them for the war. 'It was a beautiful time. It did not look like the war. But our generation, we have this experience of broken rules all around. We understand that all around may fly away in a moment.' They eventually settled in Crimea, close to their friend Andrey Stefanov, a painter who is the cinematographer on Porcelain War. Then, in 2014, Russia invaded Crimea and they returned to Kharkiv. At this point, Leontyev started military training. 'We knew,' he says. 'Since the annexation of Crimea, we knew what kind of war would come to us.' The couple fill their film with the beauty of Ukraine's landscape. We also watch Stasenko paint – an act of resistance in the face of an aggressor aiming to obliterate a nation's identity. In his voiceover, Leontyev compares porcelain to Ukraine: 'Easy to break, impossible to destroy.' Porcelain War takes us to the Bakhmut frontline in footage shot by the civilian soldiers in Leontyev's unit, using bodycams and drones shipped from the US with medical supplies by a Ukrainian hairdresser in New Jersey. The drones track bombs falling on Russian targets. They are operated by people who once had regular jobs, but now look death in the face every day. There is an IT analyst, a furniture salesman, a dairy farmer. Watching it, you can't help but wonder: could I do that? Do I have what it takes? Leontyev says the message is about resistance – ordinary people defending democracy. It shows the best of Ukrainians, he says. 'In dark times, kind people shine. All these people joined as volunteers. They are not only defending their families; they came because they felt responsibility in the face of history. This battle is a battle between totalitarianism and democracy. It's not the frontline between Ukraine and Russia. It's the frontline through whole world.' Porcelain War has been nominated for best documentary at the Oscars; the couple's stay in the US has been prolonged once again. A win would make the world their audience, up there on stage to accept the award, wouldn't it? They nod. But Leontyev is modest about the achievement. 'I never thought we'd be nominated. I don't feel like it's mine. Behind the film is the bravery of every Ukrainian soldier and the resilience of every Ukrainian civilian. It's the nomination of every Ukrainian.'
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How Ukrainian artists channeled their creativity into documenting war
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.
Los Angeles Times
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
How Ukrainian artists channeled their creativity into documenting war
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. 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.'
