Ukraine in focus at Toronto Film Festival

TORONTO

More than 18 months into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, documentary filmmakers who screened their latest work on the conflict at the Toronto film festival say it is more important than ever to keep the crisis in the public consciousness.

Oscar-nominated Egyptian director Karim Amer debuted his "Defiant," which tells the story of the first year of the war from the perspective of Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and other top Ukrainian officials.

Polish filmmaker Maciek Hamela meanwhile took a different approach with "In the Rearview," filming his own perilous road journeys to help evacuate Ukrainian civilians during the first few months of fighting in 2022.

From the United Nations to the White House, Amer follows Kuleba as he urges the West to back Kiev to the fullest extent possible in the face of Russian firepower.

The film also focuses on Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, whose original remit to put all public services online morphs into an all-out cyberwar effort backed by a massive "IT army" of volunteer hackers.

"We didn't fully understand what the story would be, but we knew we wanted it to be character-focused, based on things that the government was doing in its communication to the world," Amer, 39, told AFP ahead of the premiere.

Amer, who produced Oscar nominee "The Square" about events in Cairo's Tahrir Square in 2011, said his team for "Defiant" focused on making a film "about the war as it relates to the world," not one featuring battle footage or civilian suffering.

The film's producer Odessa Rae, who won an Oscar last year for her documentary "Navalny" about jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, said Moscow was offered the opportunity to participate in the project, but those requests went unanswered.

With "In the Rearview," which has screened at multiple festivals including Cannes since May but got its North American debut on Sept. 12 in Toronto, Hamela offers an intimate look at the suffering of ordinary people who board his van, headed for an uncertain future.

Hamela said he hoped his film would "first of all remind everybody that this war is still ongoing," but also show "an aspect of the war which is much more intimate," which could help viewers relate to everyday Ukrainians on a human level.

"It's important to make documentaries about all conflicts that raise awareness about the current state of the world we're living in," he added, citing the situations in Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen as fueling a global refugee crisis.