Porcelain War (2024), the documentary film directed by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev that won this year’s Sundance Festival Grand Jury Prize, follows the experience of Ukrainian artists as they face the current Russian occupation in Ukraine. In a masterful double-helix it shows how artists must soldier on in the face of horrific adversity and how soldiers must protect artists or risk erasure of their culture. It tempers scenes of unimaginable destruction and death with meditative observations of nature
through a cycle of seasons and the heartfelt determination of artistry. What might have been nothing more than an intrusion into a war zone, Porcelain War accomplishes much more through a multidisciplinary and layered approach. Yes, there is the shocking and heartbreaking aerial drone footage of cities ravaged by bombing and the icy remove from people being killed far below, but these are balanced with exquisitely tender animations engineered by Blu Blu Studios that bring Anya Stasenko’s delicate designs painted on porcelain to life, most notably in the recount of the takeover and evacuation of Crimea. DakhaBrakha, a Ukrainian folk music quartet who combine the musical styles of several ethnic groups, add a resonant emotional layer that expresses alarm, resistance and resolution.
In the pause after viewing the film, a prayer surfaces that this senseless invasion be finished so that the Ukrainian people can return to family, friends, culture and nation and the lives of expendable Russian soldiers stop being sent into battle like fuel for an unquenchable fire.
Porcelain War is a Picturehouse Release, runs 87 minutes, is in English, Russian, and Ukrainian with English subtitles, and is rated R. It opens Friday, January 3, 2025 at the AMC Metreon Theater, San Francisco and the Smith Rafael Film Center, San Rafael. It opens one week later, January 10, 2025 at The Flicks in Boise, Idaho.
