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Bucha (The Film) and Why it is so Important [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-23
This last Saturday afternoon I attended the screening of Bucha and Q & A with it’s Producer aand screenwriter Oleksandr Shchur (best known for writing comedy starring Volodymyr Zelenskyy) at the First Ukrainiaan Assembly of God church in New Yok City’s East Village.
About the Film:
The film is about the massacre and atrocities commited by russian and chechen soldiers in Bucha, north of Kyiv, in the first few weeks of their unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The narrative is centered around one man, Konstantin Gudauskas, a man who was granted asylum in Ukraine six months before the invasion began. Gudauskaas is a citizen of Kazakhstan, whose family were Lithuanian and Jewish and in 1941 were forced to Kazakhstan by Stalin, and many died of hunger during the ordeal. Gudauskas saved over 200 people from Bucha while the massacre was happening due to his Kazakh passport allowing him to cross russian checkpoints. He also became an eyewitness to war crimes.
I won’t spoil the film for anyone who is going too se it, but It is difficult to watch and it is one of the most important films to come out of Ukraine.
About the Producer/writer and what the audience learned from his Talk:
After the screening the producer took questions and gave valuable insight into the making of the film and what is happening with it’s distribution and streaming issues. Here are some things I found most interesting:
The actors were all either Ukrainian or Polish, and when asked what was the most difficult part of working with the group, his answer was finding Ukrainian actors to portray russians.
The actors that played the parts of people in Bucha who were rescued, were the actual people who were rescued from the Kyiv suburb.
The russian armored equipment used in the film was real aand had been captured during russia’s intial assault on Kyiv. After the filming, those same vehicles were then sent to Bakhmut, where they were used to combat the Wagner forces besieging the city.
The end of the film showed Ukrainian forces arriving in Bucha, these were the actual forces that had liberated the city in 2022.
Some of the musical compositions in the film were composed by Ihor Poklad, who is a famous Ukrainian musician, and one of those saved in Bucha, and he played himself in the film.
Also, the film was hosted by the church but also promoted by the Leonid Foundation who are
a New Jersey-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting Ukrainian refugees and
providing direct aid to Ukraine. Our mission is twofold: to facilitate the successful resettlement of displaced Ukrainians and to
send vital assistance to communities affected by the war in Ukraine.
Some of the disturbing realities aaround the film not streaming in the United States.
When asked about if the film will stream or be screened in mass in the United States, Oleksandr Shchur stated that he had spoken with Netflix but because the film had no American stars in it, they do not think it would be profitable to pick it up. This is absurd and everyone should write them and explain the need for an American audience to see the film.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the aafternoon waas when Shchur explained that he had approached Amazon about adding the film to their streaming platform, and he was told that they believed the film was Ukrainian propaganda and they would not stream the film for this purpose.
Shchur also talked about the $10,000,000,000 russia spends on dis-information on Tik Tok, X, Facebook, and other media to try and create a field where what we know to be truth about their war in Ukraine is countered with false narratives. This dis-information is then used to try and target western audiences with the goal of saying that the truth is somewhere in the middle. But it is not, there is one truth and that is what is actually happening on the ground in Ukraine, which is the murder of over 100,000 Ukrainians.
If you haven’t already cancelled any Bezos owned business, you should do so now and write a letter explaining why.
The film is screening in Chicago today, and other cities next week, the most important being Washington DC on the third anniversary of the invasion with invitations to politicians extended well ahead of the screening. Urge your reps to attend.
Slava Ukraini !!!
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