Powerful Chichester film tells story of Ukrainian guest

Chichester Film and Video Makers (CFVM) offer an important film for this year’s Chichester International Film Festival – to be shown at 3.15pm on Sunday, August 23 in the Lumiere theatre at Chichester Cinema at New Park, telling the story and journey of one of the Ukrainian guests now living in Chichester.

Richard Plowman is both director and producer and Clive Hand the editor for Liudmyla’s Story.

“Clive and I agree that it is way above in terms of quality compared to anything else we have ever produced as a club,” Richard said. “To our amazement, (film festival director) Walter Francisco seemed to agree with us and has included the film in the Chichester International Film Festival.

“At our video club Chichester Film and Video Makers, every year we try to make what we call our club film and we try to make it to the best of our abilities. When I met with Liudmyla some time ago, she told me her story. It is a fantastic story.

“The story is very simple. It starts with the war in Ukraine. She was woken up very early in the morning by the sound of explosions. She stood by the window and then made the most difficult decision of her life. She wanted to get her son who was four at the time to safety, and that meant leaving everything behind that she knew and going out into the unknown. At first she thought it would be just for a few days, but it hasn't even been a few months. It has now been more than four years.

“At the end when she comes to Chichester and she is taken in by the people that have looked after her, she realises that she is not going to go back to Kiev for a long time and she becomes very emotional. She realises what she has done and what she has left behind and what might be in the future for her. It's a very moving story and it shows so much about the resilience of the Ukrainian people and their dignity.

“The film starts as an interview, and we just realised that the best way to do this was just to let her tell her own story. But when she was making her journey she was taking pictures and doing bits and pieces on her camera. Clive, who is our editor, has done a brilliant job using pictures and a lot of footage of the war. The result is that the whole thing becomes a very personal story. At the end we felt that we had something really special here.

“One of the things that comes out of it, and this comes from her, is how good the people are in Chichester in opening their arms and welcoming these people from Ukraine. They're coming to a strange country where they don't know the language but Chichester opened itself to them, and I think per head of population Chichester has taken more Ukrainian guests than anywhere else in the country, and I think that's why the film has felt such a great resonance.”

Tickets on https://chichestercinema.org/film/liudmylas-story/

There is a short two-minute trailer which can be found on YouTube: https://youtu.be/tX5L3JnTLxc.