Vitaly Mansky’s film about the war in Ukraine was included in the Berlinale program

A joint documentary film about the war in Ukraine by Russian and Ukrainian directors, Vitaly Mansky and Yevgeny Tytarenko, entered the competition program of the 73rd Berlin Film Festival.

The film “Eastern Front” tells about the fate of five Ukrainians who took their families to the deep rear, and volunteered to go to the front to fight against the Russian army that invaded Ukraine. Filming began on the first day of the invasion, February 24 last year. On the same day, Yevgeny Tytarenko went with his friends to the front line as part of the ambulance battalion.

The 73rd Berlin Film Festival will be held from February 16 to 26. The world premiere of “Eastern Front” is scheduled for February 24. Later, on March 8, the picture will be shown in Latvia, at the closing ceremony of the “Artdocfest” festival.

• Vitaly Mansky is a Russian documentary director, opposition public figure, and also the organizer of the largest Russian international documentary film festival “Artdocfest”. In recent years, he has been repeatedly attacked and pressured by the Russian authorities under various pretexts. In 2022, the “Artdocfest”, which was supposed to be held in Moscow, was completely disrupted, the authorities banned the screening of most films, and Mansky was attacked at the entrance to the Oktyabr cinema, where the opening of the forum was supposed to take place. After that, the documentary maker announced that the festival would no longer take place in Russia.
• In September 2022, a criminal case was initiated against Mansky for defamation of film director Nikita Mikhalkov, who himself wrote a statement to the police.