Events for Nov. 01, 2024

Director’s Statement: “When Russia launched its full scale invasion on Ukraine in 2022, I felt I could not stay uninvolved. I bought a van on the third day of the war and started transporting refugees from the Polish border. Within a week, I bought another two vans and organized other buses to transport people arriving at the border crossing. It was not long before I was driving in Ukraine, bringing families of friends from Lviv, Kyiv, Cherkasy and other Ukrainian cities to the Polish border. Soon, I was getting calls every day from people asking me to transport their family members. I also started working with international aid organizations helping with evacuating underprivileged people: foreigners, pregnant surrogate mothers and people with disabilities. 

During the first wave of refugees, I barely slept; the constant influx of people and phone calls gave me the impression that every hour counted. That’s when I realized I should be driving with a second driver, and this is how the idea of In the Rearview was born. A documentary that would be subordinate to the evacuations, where the cinematography would be performed inside a car by a cameraman filming during the day, and replacing me as a driver during the night. In the Rearview approaches its story without any post-factum commentary or layer of analysis; the intimate space of the van establishes room for frank conversations between driver and passengers about life, dreams, anxieties, plans and expectations.”

In the Rearview has received multiple international accolades including being shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards. 

We are grateful to the International Folk Art Foundation, Friends of Folk Art, and donors to the Museum of New Mexico Exhibition Development Fund, including Mark Naylor and Dale Gunn, Gwenn and Eivind Djupedal, Rosalind Doherty, Barbara Forslund, David Vogel and Larry Fulton, The Gale Family Foundation, and TOKo Santa Fe for their support of Amidst Cries from the Rubble: Art of Loss and Resilience from Ukraine and its related programming.