Sundance Film Festival's Best Directing Award in the World Cinema Documentary category went to Iryna Tsilyk for her debut feature-length film, The Earth Is Blue As An Orange. RFE/RL's Current Time supported the project, which is about Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and its impact on ordinary people. It is the first-ever Ukrainian submission to Sundance and was among a record 15,000 films submitted to the festival for 2020.
The documentary will now screen at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), and then at the Berlin Berlinale. It will be available on Current Time platforms later this year.
The Earth Is Blue As An Orange features single mother Anna and her four children, who live in the front-line war zone of Donbas, Ukraine. While the outside world is made up of bombings and chaos, the family is managing to keep their home as a safe haven, full of life and full of light. Every member of the family has a passion for cinema, motivating them to shoot a film inspired by their own life during a time of war. The creative process raises the question of what kind of power the magical world of cinema could have during times of disaster. How to picture war through fiction? For Anna and the children, transforming trauma into a work of art is the ultimate way to stay human.
About Current Time
Current Time is a 24/7 Russian-language digital and TV network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA. In addition to reporting uncensored news, it is the largest provider of independent, Russian-language films to its audiences.