Freestyle Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group, has acquired the VOD rights to the war-themed documentary feature Sisters of Ukraine, which is available now to rent/own on North American digital HD internet, cable, and satellite platforms, as well as on DVD.
Directed by acclaimed documentarian Mike Dorsey, Sisters of Ukraine traces the journey of volunteers and nuns who bring a group of Ukrainian refugees on a three-day journey across Europe to housing in Spain. Two volunteers from an aid organization in Barcelona travel to a convent in western Ukraine where nuns are helping refugees following the Russian invasion. They spend three days living in the convent and helping the nuns care for local refugees who have fled eastern Ukraine, including a mother with eight children and an elderly woman who survived a missile attack on the train station in Kramatorsk that killed 60 civilians. But following the bombing of the Kerch Bridge in Crimea, the mission to bring Ukrainians to refugee housing in Spain is thrown into doubt as all of Ukraine is put under lockdown while Russia fires over 80 missiles at the country in retaliation. After a delay, the volunteers take a group of three-dozen refugees and families of soldiers fighting in the war on a three-day journey by land across Europe to housing near Barcelona.
Director Mike Dorsey (Lost Airmen of Buchenwald, Murder Rap: Inside The Biggie and Tupac Murders) co-produced the film with Steven Campos and Dorsey. The film feature interviews with Eduardo Llop, Rafael “Rafa” Moreno, and Mother Maria Cristiana Demianczuk.
Official trailer:
Dr. Laura Wilhelm of LauraWil Intercultural had the opportunity to review the film.
Mike Dorsey’s Sisters of Ukraine is a documentary that highlights the humanitarian efforts of nuns and volunteers to rescue children who have been displaced from their homes during the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. It follows the travels of two volunteers from Barcelona as they navigate many bureaucratic roadblocks to deliver their precious human cargo to a Ukrainian convent.
Sisters of Ukraine beautifully illustrates the ”less is more” virtues of documentary filmmaking. It uses a tiny slice of life format to illuminate larger human truths and at slightly over an hour does not belabor its subject.
The film’s editing and cinematography are flawless throughout with helpful captions that trace the harrowing journey, and the sumptuous score makes the rescue effort’s ultimate triumph seem even more uplifting. The striking volunteers, nuns, and children look more like actors than real-life subjects.
An articulate young refugee on a bus vividly expresses the film’s mission near the end of the rescue effort. ”I am asking that the world not get used to war,” she says. Sisters of Ukraine should appeal to fans of international crisis films and shows such as Casablanca and Transatlantic. The trans-European trek involving speakers of Spanish, Russian, and Ukrainian underscores the urgent need for global involvement to hasten an end to this senseless war. This model documentary is one of the more compelling films to emerge from the ashes of the Ukrainian tragedy in this reviewer’s opinion.
