JUSTICE MATTERS

In The Rearview

Skad dokad

Director/Producer: Maciek Hamela; Producer: Piotr Grawender
Poland, France, Ukraine, 2023
84 minutes, Color
Official website

In Person: Co-producer Anna Palenchuk

When Putin's war on Ukraine broke out in 2022, displacing millions, Polish director Maciek Hamela put his polyglot skills, his love of the Ukrainian people, and his van to work, ferrying countless families across Ukraine to safety in Poland. In this documentary, as both driver/savior and director, Hamela makes his passengers at home as he dodges landmines. Thus, the everydayness that was interrupted by Russian bombs is on display in the backseat (a 7-year-old explains, "'Worried' means when your grandma is afraid'"). Filming from the front seat to the back was a necessity that doubles as a stroke of visual poetry, capturing faces stunned by a new reality and harrowing stories that have become the stuff of chatter. We can only hope that when this terrible war is finally in the rearview, Maciek's film (and his work) will be a testament to the humanity that survived.—Judy Bloch

In Ukranian, Polish, English, Russian, and French with English subtitles