‘I was careful not to exploit the tears or the drama’: the director of Oscar-tipped Once Upon a Time in Ukraine on her powerful documentary
As Donald Trump says he wants a speedy end to the war, Betsy West wonders what form that will take, as her film offers a platform to the children caught up in the conflict
Director and producer Betsy West is best known for her lively, intimate portraits of remarkable women: her documentary RBG, for example, a profile of the late US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; and Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down, about the US congresswoman who survived an assassination attempt in 2011.
Her latest project, though, is quite different. Once Upon a Time in Ukraine, which has been shortlisted for an Oscar, is a documentary she made working with footage she did not shoot on the ground herself. Instead, it was assembled by a Ukrainian team, headed by the director of photography, Andriy Kalashnikov. The material is, in some ways, more in tune with her old life as a news producer for ABC: the effect on Ukrainian children of Russia’s full-scale invasion. It is a huge story that has barely been told, and will reverberate for decades – if not generations – after the war has ended.
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