The Heavenly Hundred from Maidan Square

Nebesna Sotnja

German book author ("The Woman in Me") and film producer ("Diana - My Story") Christian Seidel accompanied families of Maidan victims in Ukraine last year. His documentary "Heavenly Hundred" is a good example of how to deal with the pain of others. It's a fierce film because it's difficult to look an hour and a half into all the open wounds.Tim Neshitov/SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

Christian Seidel's film sheds light on the largely unknown fate of the legendary "Heavenly Hundred" ("Nebesnaya Sotnya") from Kiev's Maidan Square, over a hundred protesters who died in a hail of bullets from snipers. The tragedy, which took place two days before the revolution, was the immediate trigger for the upheaval in Ukraine, which plunged Europe into the most dangerous crisis since World War 2.

Through close encounters with those affected and their children of these victims, revered as heroes in Ukraine, the film touches on the essence of Ukrainian culture and its children from a human perspective. In light of their stories, it raises awareness of the centuries-old dilemma of Ukraine, which is simultaneously Western European and Russian, and whose name translates as "border."

The documentary also casts a spotlight on the rampant media propaganda in a conflict that seems insoluble, around which the most contradictory theories are entwined, and in which an overwhelming flood of images with the most terrible events does not even stop at children.

The film was screened on the first anniversary of the Maidan massacre as part of the official mourning ceremonies in Kiev and numerous other Ukrainian cities on February 18, 2015, and later at festivals worldwide. It was made with a zero budget and with the participation of numerous volunteers. One of its distribution channels was a snowball effect through copying USB sticks on which the film was stored. You can watch it on youtube in English, Ukrainian and German version.


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