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Feb 26, 2016 Web Exclusive By Kyle Mullin

Their every baited breath was visible in the icy air as they faced down gun muzzles, which they hoped would never be left with dark plumes of their own. Tragically, the protestors did have to take cover as their own nation’s soldiers opened fire on them. Director Evgeny Afineevsky was there, training his camera on the chaos, vividly capturing the first moments of grisly violence in what would become Ukraine’s 2013 Euromaidan protests. Dubbed Winter on Fire, and debuting on Netflix on Oct. 9 2015, the film has gone on to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary, thanks to its immersive take on Ukraine’s social unrest, and the human toll it took.

“It’s amazing how this young generation stood out in this cold weather, through the bullets and the beatings, how it stood through the cold water that was sprayed on them by the police. But they stood there and achieved their goals and fought,” says Afineevsky says during a recent interview, his Russian accent thick but his command of English vocabulary vast and vivid.

Ahead of this Sunday’s Oscar ceremony, Afineevsky tells Under the Radar about risking his life throughout that icy winter, seeing friends die as more bullets blazed, and the next injustice that he hopes to train his lens on.

Kyle Mullin [Under the Radar]: How does it feel to be an Oscar nominee?

Evgeny Afineevsky: It feels great because, you know what? It’s recognition. For the hearts broken. For the bruises on my body. For the concussions that the members of my team suffered (a group of volunteers from the protests who worked as his crew throughout the winter). It’s great recognition of professional achievement. What’s of greater importance is that it will get more people to pay attention to the movie and learn from the story. I hope it will reach a wider audience this way, and have a greater impact.

Regarding the bruises you and your team sustained: were you ever worried or afraid?

None of us, at the moment of filming, were thinking about our lives. Adrenaline was in our blood. We were surrounded by fascinating people. Looking at this movie, you can’t help but notice the unity and bravery of these people. It’s so inspiring. If you stand with them through all these nights and days, be by their side, even though I’m an observer from outside that’s just there to document things, these moments still inspired me. So, bruises? No one was thinking about that in the moment.

We’re all alive, my team, even though we have scars and stuff on our bodies that will always remind us of what happened. But, you know what? It’s all minor. The story is about those people in Maidan. As a filmmaker, it’s my duty and my passion. I live for that, for telling stories that can change lives. It’s a story of human life and spirit that can unite people, and give a great lesson about bravery. Remember, this is not a story about Ukraine. It mirrors what America’s founding fathers stood for, many years ago. This movie can be an amazing lesson, and teach this millennial generation what the real price of their freedom is, that it cannot be taken for granted.

Speaking of young people, and learning about the steep costs of those freedoms, the person I was most taken with in the movie was Roma. Tell me a bit about what it was like to get to know him and film him.

He was not only an amazing character. He was 12-years-old, but instead of playing war games with toy guns, he already saw real bullets fly toward him in Maidan. I saw him mature in those 93 days. It was fascinating to see him grow before my eyes from being a young kid, one who lost his childhood. He will never have his childhood back, and he became a grown man in a little body. I had a lot of interviews with him. I remember him telling me his dreams, how he wanted a new president for Ukraine, how he wanted to be a filmmaker and tell people’s stories. It was interesting to hear this 12-year-old man. I saw him covered with blood, crying, throwing up his arms that were damaged by the bullets. He had body armour on, but he may not be alive now. It’s fascinating to see these characters whose ages are just a number, but whose souls belong to a nation.

What psychological toll did all this risk and violence take on you?

I developed PTSD, and am under treatment now. One of my friends specialising in psychology and PTSD and is treating me these days. I was exposed to this not only at the time, when i was there on the front lines, exposed to the death, with people falling next to me dying. When adrenaline is running, you’re not feeling that. It’s only afterward when you start to have an emotional roller coaster. And I was especially exposed to it again, thinking about the death, editing footage of it, thinking about how to take this moment or that and fit it into the documentary’s narrative. But I want to get people thinking about how, in the twenty first century in the middle of “civil” Europe, how are we resolving issues by killing each other? I felt an obligation to tell this story, to show audiences how we can learn from this bravery and the amazing power of these people. I wanted to share those points with the entire world, and that made me stay with the project until the end.

I hope you get well soon. When you lamented just now living in twenty first century, and there still being so much carnage, can you tell me how documentaries and stories like this might help inspire an end to that?

For every filmmaker, it’s their hope that they will touch hearts, and by touching the hearts they’ll change the minds, and that that will change the people. I know Winter on Fire is not about the past, but about the future. Having the film available in 190 countries on Netflix, it’s a dream of every filmmaker to have their film exposed to such big audience. And when I interact with audiences, I know the film touched them and that unity can change the world.

There are so many messages in this movie, which I noticed myself, which kept me recording every day and night. There is a lot of injustice these days, for Syrian refugees, and with the Middle Eastern conflict. But in this square in Kiev, you had Jews and Muslims and Christians and everyone else, side by side together without any issues. So I hope people can learn about unity, and learn more and more about peace. United, we can change our future. At the end of the day young people came out knowing they had the power to change things. They believed in themselves, and what they wanted to achieve.

Have some such young people approached you after seeing your film? If so, what kind of feedback did they give?

Many young people have come up and said I changed their lives. It’s fascinating to absorb. I know in my life, it’s important for me. I want my films to be like sculptures that can live after me. It doesn’t matter if my life is long or short, what matters is how many lives I can change.

I recently returned to Kiev. The president invited me, and we had an amazing event for the people who died. It was a Presidential premiere of Winter on Fire, and a premiere for the hundreds of parents of people who died. It was the most emotional screening for me, because they are the heroes, and this is a monument in their memory. They are in the sky watching us, and the family really expressed their gratitude to me. I spoke with a lot of them. The president gave me a medal of honor. So I not only feel an obligation to tell this tory, but to get it to the most people around the globe.

VIDEO: UKRANIAN PRESIDENT AT WINTER ON FIRE PREMIERE

That being said, not all of the feedback was positive. Many Russian viewers accused you of being biased.

Listen, remember, I was born in Russia. Of course, for them, they don’t want to see any of this. Because Russia has such huge propaganda that controls their minds. Unfortunately, friends I had in the past reached out, and asked how I could have sold myself to fascists. And I don’t understand. Using the word fascist, it’s something that belongs to WWII and the Nazis. That words generates hate. It’s strange to use that word in the twenty first century, because there was nothing to do with the historical events of WWII and Ukraine as of right now. I was accused of doing the movie because someone paid me. But just talk to my friends, who knew how my business partner and I struggled, how we paid from our own pockets to get the documentary started, how we struggled to get investigators. Most of the people who helped me in Ukraine were volunteers who wanted to share their own story.

So at the end of the day, for a labor of love for a huge amount of friends from Maidan, yes I am getting comments that are hateful. But I am not judging these people. Their minds were programmed from their own country’s TV broadcasts. I was there, I saw it with my own eyes, held hands with the people who are no longer with us, saw the blood on my own hands, the blood of my camera crew, and I saw my own blood. And I’m showing what I saw, I’m telling the story of these people. The human stories behind the headlines. So my spirit and my soul are clear enough to stand for this movie. I’ve been there, I saw it and it’s important for me to tell it, because of the future.

Speaking of the future: do you have other documentary projects that you’d like to pursue soon?

I am already in the middle of my next one. I’m working on another story of injustice. I need to allow more innocent voices to be heard. So I am covering the story of Syrian refugees. My goal is to expose more than what is being shown in the news, mainly why so many Syrian minors are leaving their homes.

Why are they leaving their homes?

Because ISIS is trying to recruit them. I heard horrible stories about that, from the kids. I met and interviewed kids in Turkey, Germany, Serbia and Greece. They were unaccompanied minors who had left because their Syrian homes were war zones.

That’s heartbreaking. Will the film be completed soon?

I will try to finish it this year. It needs to be seen. People need to know.

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Winter on Fire is available to stream on Netflix.