A Polish vehicle traverses the roads of Ukraine. On board, people are evacuated following the Russian invasion. This van becomes a fragile and transitory refuge, a zone of confidences and confessions of exiles who have only one objective, to escape the war.
Звідки куди, Pierre, feuille, pistolet, Pierre Feuille Pistolet, 백미러로 본 전쟁, 流離路上的回望, 后视镜里的世界, Des del retrovisor, 後照鏡中的家園, Im Rückspiegel, Откуда куда, Atpakaļskata spogulī
Poland Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival 
France Cannes Film Festival - ACID 
Ukraine Odesa International Film Festival 
Canada Toronto International Film Festival 
South Korea12 DMZ International Documentary Film Festival 
India Jio MAMI Film Festival 
Hong Kong Hong Kong International Film Festival Poland Ogólnopolski Festiwal Sztuki Filmowej "Prowincjonalia" 
Czechia Kino Na Hranici 
Germany Poland Poland Festiwal Filmu Muzyki Malarstwa Lato z Muzami Poland Hommage à Kieślowski International Film Festival Germany filmPOLSKA 
Taiwan Best of INPUT Poland France Canada Canada Canada Czechia France Germany Hong Kong India Poland South Korea Taiwan Ukraine 
As expected, this documentary broke me. And aside from the usual things like seeing what war has done to my country, families torn apart, people forced to leave their homes, young children who ask questions about war, bombs, and death they shouldn't have to worry about, roads full of mines and tanks... aside from all that, what really broke me is the hope these people have to return home soon, kids asking if they can come back to spend time on the beach in the summer when this was clearly filmed in the first few months of the war, mostly spring 2022. And yet here we are, it's fall 2023. Fuck Putin and everyone who supports him.
In the Rearview (2023) 🇺🇦 🇵🇱
Maciek Hamela fährt, filmt und hört zu. In den ersten Monaten des russischen Angriffskrieges bringt er Menschen mit
seinem Auto aus der Ukraine Richtung polnische Grenze.
Der Film zeigt meist "nur" die Perspektive des Autorückspiegels mit gelegentlichen Shots aus dem Auto auf die Straße und die Umgebung.
Man hört die Mitfahrer*innen sprechen;
kein Kommentar, kein Voice-over: einfach Menschen von jung bis alt: ihre Gesichter, Stimmen und insbesondere Geschichten.
Ein Mann lässt seine Hunde frei, ein Kind vermisst die Großmutter, eine Frau erzählt von einem improvisierten Friedhof vor ihrem Haus, eine Frau erzählt vom gefallenen Ehemann.
Das alles ist authentisch und sehr nahe, aber auch neben ganz "banalen", alltäglichen Themen. Doch das Alltägliche mischt sich…
In the Rearview is a heartbreaking road movie. An intimate and stirring portrait of war through the eyes of Ukrainians. As they drive past apocalyptic sights, they reflect on all they’ve lost. You hear the trauma but also an affecting dose hopefulness for the future.
It was the cow named Beauty that broke me. And all the calm, incredible children. Worth taking a seat in this car between the bigger hitters of TIFF.
Constrained; different; heavy; important; short; simple; tragic.
Blurring the line between objective observer and force for change, filmmaker Maciek Hamela documents his work as an evacuation driver in this clear-eyed film. Unfolding as a series of refugee portraits, IN THE REARVIEW negotiates a decimated landscape to gather compelling testimonies of survival.
Now streaming exclusively on MUBI.
Maciek Hamela’s minimalist debut documentary is an expansive road trip through an invasion that drove more than 15 million refugees — more than one-third of Ukraine’s population — in search of safer pastures.
Born in the 1980s, director Maciek Hamela was part of the first generation of Poles not forced to study Russian. Still, he took it upon himself to learn the oppressor’s language. In 2013, when the Ukrainian president, pressured by Russia, refused to sign an association agreement with the EU, and masses protested at Kyiv’s Maidan Square, Hamela travelled to join them. There, he made lifelong friends and forged a devotion to Ukraine. Years later, in the initial days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, he purchased a van and…
A documentary about Ukrainians trying to escape their country during the war. The concept is simple : the camera is in the car where people who want to flee enter.
This is absolutely heartbreaking, of course, and the movie is very straightforward. There is no unnecessary style effects, just people who tell about their stories, anxious faces, the Ukrainian war landscape. This is what makes the movie work so well, and in a way that's also its limit.
Simply observed, it just shows faces under stress, a population in transition. Docs like this help us understand current reality. The title in Polish, Skąd Dokąd, roughly means From Where to Where, but the English title is fine.
Anecdotally, from my family who visit Poland, Ukrainians there assimilate so fast you often can't tell who the new immigrants are. It makes Poland look good on the global stage.
Recommendation: SCREEN
Synopsis:
A Polish van traverses the roads of Ukraine. On board, the driver-director and evacuated people, following the Russian invasion. The vehicle becomes a fragile and temporary refuge, a zone of confidences of exiles.
Review:
This was the winner of the 2023 Filmfest Hamburg in the category „The political film“.
I was frozen when the credits rolled.
The jury said it best about the film:
„It is shot under the most difficult conditions, with a single camera, in a single, narrow space.
Every now and then the view goes outside through the window and shows pictures that we have all seen on TV in a similar way, pictures of destruction. But now we see them from the perspective…
Incredibly brave filmmaking. For starters, the 75 trips director Maiciek Hamela and DOP Piotr Grawender made across the active front lines of the Ukranian invasion to transport refugees west. But also, trusting that an engaging narrative would emerge from such a limited production.
One shot forward, through the windscreen, at road blocks, minefields, and the brown husks of burnt out minibus’s, which put the present danger front of mind throughout. One shot backwards, the rear view, at the stony faces of families and strangers, packed into two rows of seats with everything they could carry.
It was in this ‘safe’ space, which they started sharing their stories. It shocked me, how innocuously the bleakest aspects of the conflict crept in.…
heart wrenching look into the voluntary mission to get Ukraine refugees to the Polish border. A documentary allowing those affected to have an open platform to share honest feelings and emotions.
Urge everyone to watch this.
