Director KATYA SOLDAK (US 2020) 83 min
Shot over the course of ten years, Ukrainian-American journalist, Katya Soldak, chronicles the changes in her and her loved ones’ perceptions of their relationship to Russia. Using news footage and intimate accounts with her family and friends, and humor, she vividly recounts her life in Kharkiv and summer vacations in Russia, the revered statue of Lenin in her city square, to the fall of the Iron Curtain and the impactful changes of entering the Western world. Through revolutions, corrupt leaders, and economic failures, not everyone initially embraced independence. A deeply insightful film told through first-person accounts, Soldak reveals the intricate and difficult journey for Ukrainian freedom; how the taste for democracy and the longing for security often led to opposing viewpoints, but how ultimately the threat of losing their independence unified a nation to fight for the right to choose its own future. Katya Soldak is a New York based journalist and the editorial director of Forbes Media’s international editions.