Director Sergej Bukovskij takes the viewer on a journey of discovery as he and several Ukrainian students absorb the testimony of local people who escaped brutal execution and those who rescued friends and neighbors during the Holocaust. A group of men and women share the details of their experiences, and we are afforded a glimpse of modern day Ukraine: the ethnic stereotypes that continue to exist and the manner in which Post-Soviet society is dealing with the question of how to memorialize the sites where tens of thousands of Jewish families and others were executed and thrown into mass graves.

Sergej Bukovskij

Sergej Bukovskij was born in 1960 in Bashkiria, USSR. After graduating from the Karpenko-Karyi Kiev State Institute of Theatrical Arts, he began working as a film director at the Ukrainian State Studio of Documentary Films. He has made approximately 50 documentary and television films and won awards at international film festivals. His nine-part documentary series War. The Ukrainian Account (2003) was awarded the National Taras Shevchenko Prize of Ukraine in 2004. Over the last few years Sergej Bukovskij has been working as an independent film director and making documentaries for Ukrainian and Russian television channels.

Selected Filmography

The Hyphen / Znak tire (1992)
To Berlin! / Na Berlin! (1995)
War. The Ukrainian Account / Vijna. Ukrainskij rahunok (2003)
Vilen Kalyuta. Real Light / Vilen Kaljuta. Realne Svitlo (2003)