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Less than a year ago, Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov was presenting his latest film “Rhino” at the prestigious Venice Film Festival.
But since Moscow invaded his country in February, the director quit his job and joined the fight to defend the country.
“The cinema is only a part of my life, an important part, but only a part. Russia wants to take back its old colony of Ukraine, but Ukraine is not a colony. Ukraine is an independent country and we have a very brave nation that will fight against any aggression.”
In an interview with AFP on his day off in the city of Kramatorsk, the director recounted the path that took him from work to cinema, then to a Russian prison and now to the trenches of Donbass. Sentsov has always been politically active.
“I took my family to Lviv, then returned to engage in territorial defense in Kiev. I am part of an intelligence unit that supports and protects groups that operate, in particular, Stinger.
Sentsov took part in the 2013 Maidan uprising that toppled a pro-Kremlin president in Ukraine and then joined the demonstrations in Crimea.”
Later that year, the director of the internationally acclaimed film Gamer (2011) was arrested by Russia and sentenced to 20 years in prison on terrorism charges.
Jailed in Siberia, Sentsov staged a 144-day hunger strike before being released in 2019 as part of a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine. While behind bars, Sentsov was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2018.
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