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Photos, video 16:26 23 Jan 2025

Porcelain War, documentary on Russia's war against Ukraine, earns Oscar nomination

Photo: Screenshot from the movie "Porcelain War"

Brendan Bellomo and Kharkiv resident Slava Leontiev's film The Porcelain War has been nominated for an Oscar in the "Best Documentary" category.

As "Suspilne" reports, this was announced on January 23 during a live broadcast.

The movie tells the stories of Ukrainian ceramic artists Slava, Ania, and Andrii, who choose to stay and fight amidst the chaos of war instead of evacuating. They transform their creativity into a form of symbolic resistance. The trio remained in Kharkiv, which faced relentless rocket fire from the first day of the full-scale invasion.

Nominees in the category "Best Documentary". X/@TheAcademy

The film shows what forms resistance can take.

By day, Leontiev trains Ukrainian troops to repulse Russian invaders. But his spare moments he devotes to art—the porcelain figurines he makes with his wife, Ania Stasenko (Slava sculpts the owls, "dragonets" and other animals, and Ania paints them in remarkable detail).

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Photo: Screenshot from the film "Porcelain War"

The authors call the "Porcelain War" an "artistic triumph".

Andrii Stefanov, a painter-turned-cinematographer and close friend of Slava and Ania, captured the film's stunning visuals. Animated sequences brought Ania's decorative designs to life, and the Ukrainian folk quartet DakhaBrakha music enriched the film's naturalistic feel.

"Even the war footage surprises with disturbing intimacy: I've never seen POV shots like those in the documentary, showing the curiously graceful descent of a mini-bomb toward a Russian armored vehicle below," the American publication Deadline writes.

Filmmakers from the USA, Ukraine, and Australia worked on producing the film.

The film's world premiere took place at the Sundance Festival in 2024, where it received the Grand Prix of the US Documentary section.

As Rubryka previously reported, the Ukrainian documentary "Porcelain War," directed by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontiev, received two nominations for the prestigious Critics Choice Documentary Awards.

The Ukrainian film "Porcelain War" also made it into the 10 best documentaries of 2024.

For reference:

In 2025, the Oscar awards ceremony will take place on the night of March 3 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, with comedian Conan O'Brien hosting for the first time.

In 2024, a Ukrainian film won the prestigious American Film Academy award for the first time. The film "20 Days in Mariupol," created by war correspondent Mstyslav Chernov and photographer Yevhen Maloletka, received the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.

During the award ceremony, Chernov remarked that winning the Oscar for his film was a landmark moment for Ukrainian cinema. However, he admitted that he would have preferred never to make the film and would happily trade the award for peace in Ukraine before the Russian invasion.

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