Porcelain War


Porcelain War is a 2024 documentary film directed by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev. It won the 2024 Sundance Festival Grand Jury Prize and follows the experience of Ukrainian artists as they face the Russo-Ukrainian War#Full-scale [Russian invasion of Ukraine |current Russian occupation in Ukraine].
The documentary had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the U.S. Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize. At the 97th Academy Awards it was nominated for Academy Award for [Best Documentary Feature Film|Best Documentary Feature Film].

Premise

Porcelain War follows Slava Leontyev, Anya Stasenko, and Andrey Stefanov during the war in Ukraine. All of them join the Ukrainian defense, and Slava works as a machine gun trainer. Even as the war goes on, Slava and Anya create porcelain figurines in resistance to the war. The film emphasizes the purpose of art during conflict as well as national pride. The soundtrack for the movie features music by Ukrainian Folk/ethno-chaos band DakhaBrakha who gave their entire discography for the film with a scene of their live performance during the credits.
The footage in Porcelain War includes Ukrainian landscape as well as the wreckage caused by war missiles.

Production

War footage for Porcelain War was captured by GoPro action cameras and aerial drones. The movie also features hand drawn and CGI animation scenes from Polish company BluBlu Studios.

Release

The film won the Grand Jury Prize for the U.S. documentary category in the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Bellomo, who created the film along with Leontyev, explained that the film received an award "because of the bravery of the people of Ukraine". The film was also sponsored by the Utah Film Center. In August 2024, Picturehouse acquired distribution rights to the film.

Reception

The film received widespread critical acclaim. It holds a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 43 reviews, with the website's critics consensus reading, "Porcelain War presents harrowing footage from the frontlines of a terrible conflict while treasuring the creativity that flourishes in spite of the chaos, yielding a profound humanistic statement on resilience." Writing for the Los Angeles Times, critic Robert Abele described Porcelain War as "a sublime and stirring documentary."
It has been nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 97th Academy Awards.

Accolades