Chicago International Film Festival is in progress, and I had absolutely no time to see anything. Except for when I saw that documentary in the list of participating films, I knew I would find a non-existent time.
It was not even in the Siskel Center, but fortunately, on my way from work to home (I had to leave about an hour earlier to make it, but there were only two screenings of this film!).
It’s an unimaginably difficult film to watch. Even though there is no fighting, no shooting, no explosions, and even though we’ve seen footage of buildings damaged by Russian shells, you feel it differently watching from inside an evacuation minibus. Most of the people whom Maciek was evacuating were Russian speakers, and it was especially horrible to hear them referring to the “Russian tanks” as enemy tanks. About twenty minutes into the documentary, I started to cross my heart and didn’t stop till the end.
Maciek Hamela was there! The funniest thing is that he entered the building right before me, and like I, he was a little bit uncertain about where theater 13 was, where the screening was about to take place. And I heard him talking in Polish on the phone, and I thought that he might be going to the same screening, but I could never imagine it was a filmmaker!
He talked a little bit before the screening and after (he answered many of the same questions in the interview below), and then he answered questions from the audience. And then people started to thank him and started to come down and hug him, and then I left.
May those who brought this war to the land of Ukraine burn in hell!
An interview with Maciek Hamela:
Hettie's Reflections 