Porcelain War – A Tribute to Beauty and Courage

Owl in wall, PORCELAIN WAR © Picturehouse 2024
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Porcelain War, opened the Coast Film and Music Festival (CFMF) at the Rivian South Coast Theater. The event was co-produced by the World Affairs Council of Orange County. 

Directed by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev
**WINNER – GRAND JURY PRIZE – Sundance 2024** 
US Documentary Competition

Currently playing in NY at the IFC Center, it opens in LA at the Laemmle Monica on 11/29.

Anya delicately finishes porcelain snail, PORCELAIN WAR © Picturehouse 2024

This film is among the most remarkable, beautiful, and powerful movie I can remember seeing.  A war story, yes, but a war story through the eyes of artists, of peaceful people fighting only to be free.  And we, the audience are in that war with them, not wanting war, but not wanting to be taken over and having a life stripped of freedom, having their, and possibly our, way of life removed.

It is a visually exquisite film.  The people who tell the story feel like ones’ family, ones’ friend.  They are people who don’t want war but who had war thrust upon them. The horror of war is there to see, but the spirit of the Ukrainians’ holds for the duration of the film, at least.

There are many philosophical, wise, deep thoughts expressed in the film – among them, that no one is the same after a war as they were before the war.  And with this film, one is changed with its magic.

Slava trains the civilian soldiers, PORCELAIN WAR © Picturehouse 2024

It is hypnotic.

In the feature-length documentary Porcelain War, Leontyev and co-director Brendan Bellomo take audiences through a year in the life of Leontyev, Stasenko and their friend, painter Andrey Stefanov, as they defiantly face a dangerous, often unimaginably violent new way of life. Shot primarily by first-time cinematographer Stefanov, Porcelain War captures the idyllic meadows and forests that have long nurtured the artists’ creative drive, contrasted with devastating images of the blasted city scape of Kharkiv. A luminous and illuminating 90-minute portrait of life during wartime, the film allows audiences to slip into the shoes of the reluctant combatants as they defiantly persist in their search for truth and beauty in their war-ravaged homeland, all set to the unique sound of world-famous Ukrainian musical quartet DakhaBrakha.

According to Leontyev, a ceramicist and graphic designer, documenting the chaos and violence all around him was the furthest thing from his mind. “I had stopped doing all photography,” he explains. “I have only ever been interested in taking photos of beautiful things. And war is horrible, so why film it?” At times the scenes are breathtakingly beautiful, contrasting to the horror and destruction in the city.

“Our life was stolen from us when Russia occupied Crimea.” — Slava Leontyev

Nothing in Leontyev and Stasenko’s histories had prepared them for either war or filmmaking. For years they have worked together to create whimsical, delicately beautiful “porcelain beasts,” as they call them, molded and polished by Leontyev before being lovingly hand painted by Stasenko. “I shouldn’t even have ended up in the Special Forces,” Leontyev says. “I wasn’t young, my physical state wasn’t good, I didn’t have the training or the intellectual capacity. And the same goes for all my comrades. But after the annexation of Crimea, the Russian invasion was escalating without cease and we had to prepare to resist it. We’d been training since 2015. All of us had to purchase our own weapons and prepare independently.”

Anya’s admiring Slava’s latest porcelain creation, PORCELAIN WAR © Picturehouse 2024

“The war echoes through nature outside of Kharkiv.” — Anya Stasenko

The art created by Stefanov, Stasenko and Leontyev provides the film its heart, says Bellomo, serving as the anchor and the soul of the story. “All of them are deeply sensitive, deeply articulate people driven to find meaning in what’s going on around them, whether it’s positive or horrific. Andrey’s painting is inspired by the landscapes of Ukraine and Crimea. There’s something beyond just the brushstrokes that to me defines him as a great painter, and his photography has the same quality.

“Slava is deeply curious and intuitive,” adds Bellomo. “He finds beauty everywhere. And for Anya, as she says in the film, painting is her language. She’s able to articulate the entire range of her experience through it. The characters she creates feel like people you could know. They derive inspiration from a deep legacy of Ukrainian art, but at the same time they’re wholly unique.”

Slava’s unit testing drones, PORCELAIN WAR © Picturehouse 2024

Exploring the world from perspective of the drones was at once fascinating and horrifying.

If not for the fact that this film is absolutely exquisite and inspirational, it would be unbearable to watch. I am glad to have seen it.

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